Welcome to The Baggage Game! As usual, you can find the video linked at the bottom of this entry. Unfortunately, the Excess Baggage for the show is down right now. Sorry!Today's dater is Tracy, a business owner from Tuscon, Arizona, who looks like she has been cast in an adult movie as a schoolgirl. She's wearing a sort of gray vest with a white blouse, but a really short black skirt. Tracy looks a bit like a bustier, older Anna Kendrick. She wants an artistic guy "who can kiss good." Why, heavens! (Note: Tracy is really, really good looking, since Anna Kendrick is currently in my top three.)
Mark is the first candidate, and he's a financial planner from Houston, Texas. He loves music and road trips. He's looking for a girl with class in public, but a wild side behind closed doors. He kind of looks like that loser Jake from The Bachelor. Next up is Eric, a fitness trainer from New York City. He has really cool facial hair, and he looks like he could be a linebacker for the Giants. He's also a massage therapist, which gets an ooo from the crowd. Finally, we have Andrew, a social worker from Chicago. He's really, really normal looking and seems a bit timid, so I'm betting he's the "freak show" candidate for this game.
Mark: I own 250 pieces of hamburger memorabilia. (Jerry says, "That's a whopper.")
Eric: I used to be a stripper.
Andrew: I always use coupons on dates. (Jerry says, "I use coupons to buy prunes, but not dates.")
Mark's baggage is... weird, but not that unusual. Eric says he hung his G-string up a while ago, so if that was a female, that wouldn't bug me so much. Meanwhile, Tracy rightly points out that she doesn't know nice restaurants that accept coupons. I'm with her on this - a coupon on a date is just kind of tacky. Boo!
Andrew: I'm a paying member of nine dating services.
Mark: I share a credit card with my former girlfriend.
Eric: I have a collection of stolen women's panties.
Well, there is the obvious "go home" here - Definitely the panties guy. That's just weird and freaky, dude. Overlooking this obviously horrible thing, the credit card thing would be the next-worrisome thing. And I'm confused as to how someone can be a member of NINE dating services. I'm on two, and neither cost any money.
Tracy hesitates for about half a second before eliminating the panties guy. You go girl! This turns out to be Eric the Stripper. He says it's "a nice, clean collection," and does explain that the girls left them behind at his house. This makes me wonder what kind of women he's "dating," if that's the proper term. I've never had any panties left at my place, ever.
Hot spot time! Mark's most treasured possession is his dog (which he shares with his ex, by the way, and hence the shared credit card), women like his charm, he won't have sex on the first date, and the strangest place he's had sex was the front yard of someone else's house. Andrew gets in the mood when his girlfriend cooks, he'd ask a genie for good health, he fantasizes about Megan Fox, he listens to a woman to make her feel special (Jerry says, "What's that like?"), and the wildest thing he's done in bed is take directions (???).
Mark: I keep hundreds of nude photos from ex'es.
Andrew: I've gone to Russia three times to find a wife.
Eric (eliminated): I love drinking breast milk.
Wow - It would be awesome if Mark's ex-girlfriends were watching the show. He said it's mostly because they're from long distance relationships, which makes it worse to me. He sounds like a womanizer and sexual freak. Meanwhile, Andrew is on the other end of the spectrum. Even when he talks, he sounds nebbish and not confident with himself. No wonder he wants to settle down, like now, because I can't imagine he's had sex yet.
Given the baggage, I'd eliminate Mark, just because he's sleazy. Neither one of them seems like a great guy though, so I almost wonder if Tracy would rather have Eric the Stripper and Breast Milk Drinker back. She goes back and forth a bit on them, and rightly says about Andrew, "He seems so desperate that I think he'd settle for anybody." She then eliminates him, which makes sense to me. Tracy's baggage is one of these three things:
- I'm currently on parole.
- I'm a topless magician. (My guess, but not a strong guess.)
- I pushed a boyfriend's car off a cliff.
Tracy hasn't shown a ton of personality throughout the game, so I don't have a good read on what her baggage could be. Of these three, the parole thing would be the most worrisome, depending on what it's for. Drugs, or a third DUI? Ick. But if it's just some minor crime, then it would be game on. The topless magician thing would be weird, but meh, whatever! It's a living. And the car thing, I would just assume the guy was a dick.
Mark says he would be most concerned with the car off the cliff, because "I'm a big car guy." However, I bet it's because most of his relationships end badly. Her actual baggage is the topless magician thing though, which gets a loud cheer from the crowd. Of course, they have a picture of it, and she looks GREAT. Mark takes about half a second to accept her baggage, and they get to go to a fancy steakhouse for a date.
And, after doing some snooping, it looks like Tracy might be Tracy Dali - You can see her IMDB here. If not, the resemblance is striking. She has been in a surprising number of films, although I'm a bit miffed that her baggage was the illusionist thing, considering that she is apparently Playboy's most downloaded lingerie model.
