By Lisa Fary
Really, is there a such thing as a tuba that isn’t cursed?
When I was in my high school marching band, the only thing more lame than a tuba was a piccolo. We were a very segregated band – the brass hated the woodwinds, the flag line hated the dancers, and everyone hated percussion.
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a member of the percussion line? It was impossible. They’d turn every surface into a drum. Take away their drumsticks and they’d switch to pencils. Break the pencils and they’d use their fingers. Picture fifteen copies of Animal from The Muppets and you get the idea.
The tubas were in this weird place where their instruments were too big to be sexy like a trombone and too small to have the visual impact of a sousaphone.
Wow. That reads waaay dirtier than it did in my head. Moving on, then.
The perpetrating tuba in this week’s episode of The Middleman doesn’t carry the traditional curse of the American high school marching band, what with it’s sweat stained uniforms, acne, and calloused feet from hours of marching practice. This tuba carries the curse of the Titanic, which depending on which Titanic we’re talking about, is either:
Curse A: Drowning in the icy waters of the North Atlantic
or
Curse B: Having Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” stuck in your head for days
Luckily, we’re not talking about the movie Titanic, so we can be free of Celine and Curse B for a bit longer. However, anyone who hears the tuba play will suffer from Curse A.
That’s not a pressing problem, so the stakes have to be raised. The tuba is going to be played at. . . an exclusive, Titanic themed party on a private ocean liner that’s three feet longer than the Queen Mary and eighty-six feet longer than the Titanic!
Which still isn’t very pressing. When I think of an ocean liner full of wealthy, Titanic enthusiasts, I don’t immediately think, “Save them! They must live to trade stocks for another day!” Apparently, neither do the writers – they had the good sense to stick Lacey and Noser on the ocean liner as a way of making the viewer care.
And I did care. I even cared a bit when The Middleman dashed Lacey’s romantic hopes for the classic superhero reason that their love would put her in danger. But, Lacey seems like she likes a challenge. I sense more Middlestalking in her televised future.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
