The Land Shark Incident. Remember
"The Land Shark" skits from the old "Saturday Night Live"
from the 80's? Chevy Chase (I thought it was Buck Henry, but somebody
corrected me, and I believe they were right) was always the Land Shark
and either Jane Curtain, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner or the guesthostess
were the unsuspecting women--who, by the way, are listening to or watching
the newsflash of the Land Shark attacks in their own neighborhoods right
when the doorbell rings. They are told under no circumstances to open
the door, the Land Shark is tricky, they say. All of a sudden the doorbell
rings, and they jump. They ask very tentatively who it is. There is a
brief pause, then quietly the voice on the other end of the door says,
"Candygram." "I didn't order any candy grams." Another
knock at the door. "Who is it?" They ask as if this was the
first time the doorbell rang. "Girl Scout Cookies," the voice
on the other side of the door says. "I didn't order any cookies.
Go away!" A moment of silence, then a soft knock at the door. "Who
is it?" The girl asks, "uh...Unicef...maa'am..." She thinks
hard, and believes the caller to now be geniune. She opens the door and
gets eaten. Always having been a huge fan of SNL, this dialogue became
quickly integrated into my everyday language. It became a running joke
with me and my best friend. So, here's the story:
My friend and I were driving from Los Angeles to Colorado, I guess it
was around 1986. Probably about halfway there, we stopped at this large
diner-truckstop place for lunch and to use the restrooms. After being
seated and ordering, we both went into the bathroom at the same time.
It was huge, patterned in bold black and white tile, mirrors wall to wall.
All of the stalls were situated in the middle of the room in cubes of
four stalls, so that you were back to back and side by side to stalls.
I go into one stall, friend goes into the other. We're still carrying
on our conversation, because we're close enough, side by side, to talk
without being heard by everyone who came in after us.
I come out of my stall and start to wash my hands, still talking to my
friend, who is talking to me. I dry my hands, go over to her stall, knock,
and say "Candygram." No answer. I wait a few seconds, wondering
why she's so quiet, but I play it through, nonetheless. I knock again,
"Campfire Girls." Well, now I really can't figure out what's
going on. So, I knock again, "Uniceff." I say. I start to knock
one more time, and before I can stop my hand from hitting the stall door
I see friend come running from around the other side of the cube, on the
other bank of stalls. Her hands were covering her mouth, because she was
laughing like hell as she ran out of the room. So, I'm left standing there
paralyzed, mortified facing this stall that is absolutely silent; the
poor woman must be terrified even to breath too loudly for fear of what
this kook on the other side might do. It must have seemed like I was absolutely
out of my flipping mind. I looked down at her feet and they're black orthopedic
shoes, such as an elderly lady would wear. I was sure she'd never seen
Saturday Night Live then. I was frozen with mortification and trying to
move because the toilet in the stall has just flushed and the stall door
was about to open. |