Why 24 isn't based on my life.

I like 24. Though comparing oneself to Jack Bauer may be risky, I admit that I tend to do it. I am not sure what it is that my day-to-day life lacks that makes it a bad script for an episode of 24, but if even one hour of Jack Bauer's doings were based on my life, it would probably end the career of all of the involved writers. Here is a pitch for an episode that is a completely accurate description of an hour of my life. Imagine a writer describing this to his colleagues as they work on the next episode of 24:

The following takes place between 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm:
So, we open with Jack Bauer realizing that the car he borrowed from his grandparents is too dirty to return and that he only has a few more hours before it has to be back. We cut to him driving to a car wash. At the Chevron station, the automatic car wash is closed because of weather. We show the side-story of his grandparents at the airport preparing to board their plane--Jack has to return the car before they come back. He goes to another car wash and, upon positioning the car to be washed, he realizes that he only has one dollar in his wallet. He jumps into the car and floors it around the block to go to the ATM at the 7-11 across the street. Cut to Jack's roommate who's waiting to follow Jack to his grandparents' house and then drive him back. His roommate is watching TV. We slow up the pace a bit, as Jack buys a donut with his recently acquired 20 dollar bill and begins to consume it (the donut, not the bill). Cut to the clock.

Jack jumps back in the car and--using those unstable camera shots to show commotion--he jumps out and runs to the change machine. He starts with the pink foamer and it looks like things are going to be alright, but wait! It's too cold. It looks like Jack's efforts may have amounted to little more than scrubbing the layer of ice outside the car, rather than clearing dirt and ice from the car itself. What's more the pink soap foam is freezing! Now Jack has a car that's not only dirty, but now has a layer of frozen pink soap on top of its layer of ice. Just when it looks like things aren't going to work, the timer starts beeping and there's only a minute left before the foam stops. Even worse, Jack forgot to put on his mittens and his hands are looking like they're going to get frostbite! Jack puts the foamer on the ground and the foamer starts making a mess all over his shoes, but he doesn't care. He has to get those mittens on. Just as he starts to insert his hand into the mitten, he sees that his hands are covered in pink foam. We show a quick shot of the door handle he had just foamed before opening the car door to get his mittens. After wiping them on his pants, he covers his hands, but the timer runs out and he has to shell out another $1.50. Jack's grandparents are now on the plane and settling in for a long ride. Jack sets the car wash to rinse mode this time and again the timer starts to look like it's running out. Jack's roommate changes the channel. Jack puts in more quarters, but there's still frozen, pink foam on the car. This time he's out of quarters. Fumbling with his mittens and the hose, we leave Jack and cut to the clock.

We come back and, after a quick trip to the change machine, Jack has to put another $1.50 in the machine to start it. It's looking like things are almost done when Jack notices that there's less than a minute left and that there's a big pocket of frozen pink foam that he hadn't rinsed. The tension builds as the ice that Jack is trying to remove from the car is replaced by the ice that he is creating by spraying the car with water in sub-freezing temperatures. Finally, Jack sees that he's out of time and goes to the vacuum. After a stranger accosts him and inquires as to Jack's estimation of the futility of his efforts, Jack inserts his $0.75 and starts to vacuum--but the vacuum isn't working. The possibility of losing his $0.75 motivates the added urgency with which Jack checks the hose for obstructions. He grabs the nearest object--a little pocket-tool-- and starts to jam it desperately into the opening of the vacuum hose. It looks like the hose is clogged with slush and mud--possibly the same thing that Jack was trying to vacuum up when the vacuum stopped working. Jack weakly attempts to remove the nozzle, but he's not strong enough. Realizing that he's about to lose his money, Jack vacuums up what he still can with the partially obstructed hose. The floor of the car is still dirty. Cut to the clock.

Finally, the car looks alright and Jack has to make it back. He almost gets killed in traffic by an oncoming truck while trying to change lanes because he had deposited a thick film of ice on his rear-view mirrors. He looks for a parking space and finds one. He runs in and can't find his thank-you notes. The episode ends with Jack searching desperately for his thank-you notes while his roommate puts laundry in a basket. His grandparents are getting beverage service on the plane.