With all the bickering, we almost forgot that there was a clue hanging around - at the Berlin Wall specifically. Bolo pulled over some local and asked for directions. "You know the Berlin Wall?" he asked. The woman responded with an exasperated answer that seemed to say "No, never heard of it. Is that like some socially relevant landmark that may have divided my city for many years? Oh wait, I did hear about that! I got shot when I tried to climb over it!"

The next clue instructed teams to head to a sculpture of broken chains (cue the Spielberg violin) across the street from a church ravaged from WWII (cue Tom Hanks giving Phil a little pat and saying "WWII sanctimony? I'll take it from here, Phil."). While most teams found the clue box along the Berlin Wall easily, a few actually meandered into the wall territory where they found themselves trapped behind.. a wall! It's almost as if the Berlin Wall was... a wall! Who would have thought a wall could be such... a wall! Eventually the two teams made their way out of the area and sprinted back to the clue box, passing Gus and Hera, out for their usual racetime promenade. "That's why running too fast is bad," commented Hera. Team Slow and Steady strikes again!

At the sculpture, teams received their Detour for this leg of the race: Brats or Beers. In Brats, teams had to go to a sausage factory (Adam jokes forming...) where they were to make five continuous seven inch links. In Beer, teams had to go to a pub and hand over two steins of beer to get five custom made coasters which were hidden everywhere. Stumped by the word "stein" and apparently unable to ask a local, Freddy and Kendra bounded off to the sausage factory. Ahead of them were paragons of domestic bliss Jon and Victoria who quickly popped out their brats. The couple's ease with the phallic objects once again supported my theory that the two dabble in porn. Feel free to spread that rumor.

As the bratwurst industry enjoyed its most high profile exposure since Paris and Nicole first introduced the sausage arts to reality TV (and arguably night vision), the sexual innuendoes poured on quickly. Bolo, Lori, and Rebecca all worked together to form one giant double-entendre interchange as they described the process. Bolo: "Is it hard?" Lori: "At first." Rebecca: "Start pushing it in." Snickers all around the TVgasm offices. Meanwhile, as the meat slowly firmed up the limp intestinal casing, Rebecca asked her girlfriend Adam if he was paying attention. "I'm paying attention!" he snipped. "Good God am I paying attention!" he seemed to salivate.

On the other side of the room, Bolo gave some credence to his barbarian label as he snacked on the raw innards of the sausage. As charming as it may have been to watching him slurp down the uncooked intestinal casing, I really didn't need to see it. This just in: Bolo has died.

Over at the pub, teams were having an easy time finding their coasters. The only one with any sort of problems was Hera, who tragically learned that her father was a lush. While she desperately tried to get the clue, Gus kept sipping from his gargantuan steins. To his credit, that beer did look delicious. Still, I wouldn't want Gus getting all drunk and showing us his man-titties again.

Back with the bratwurst, we finally got the innuendo we expected from Adam in a sausage factory. As Rebecca dispassionately urged "Keep going. Push. Push", Adam let his true feelings out: "More than seven inches. More! I want more than seven inches. We need a pump. Can I get one of these for my house?" Is this what it sounds like when these two have sex, or, ahem, "sex"? (That was my snarky way of implying that they don't have sex because I think Adam is gay).

While Adam lived out his sexual fantasies through the sausage grinder, Bolo and Lori offered up their links to the judges. At first they were rejected for having small sausages (those steroids really do shrink everything), but the second time around, they passed. I wonder if it was Lori's demonic whisper chanting of "Seven. Seven. Seven." that convinced the judge to let them go. I feared she would place some voodoo hex on his house had he sent them back again.

Not long after the wrestlers left, Rebecca and Adam finished up their set. Rebecca was proud of the last sausage: "The last one is girthy and lengthy," she said. Ah yes. Just the way Adam likes it. What? He likes large bratwursts. And penis too. No big deal.

Around this time we realized that Jon and Victoria had a commanding lead over everyone else as they were the first to arrive at a soapbox derby Roadblock. Great. These two do not deserve first place. Alas. Jon guided his soapbox cart down the hill under the acceptable time limit, and while he and his wife tried to figure out how to get to the Pitstop, Freddy and Kendra showed up to try their hand at the Roadblock. Wow, maybe that lead wasn't as commanding as I had thought. More on that later...

Now let's pause to once again admire Hayden's boobs which happily bounced up and down as she ran up to her boxcart. Did anyone else hear timpani drums going "Bum boom bum boom" in their heads? And don't act like you didn't notice. Those things were bouncing around so much I thought she was going to pull a lottery number out of her chest.

Posted by B-side on December 15, 2004 1:33 AM