Watching Wheel of Fortune at home and actually playing it in the show are two very, very different experiences. It's easy enough to know the answer on your couch, but it doesn't always come to you at the moment when you are on the show.
Of course, sometimes you might just not know a certain word or phrase, or might think it's spelled differently than it actually is. Either way, it can be embarrassing to get wrong. Which, unfortunately, is what happened to one Wheel contestant last week.
During the episode, which aired on March 1st, contestants were tested with a puzzle under the "food and drink" category.
Angie Gautney, who works as a teacher in North Deland, Florida, had nearly all of the letters on the board.
By the time it was her turn to guess, the puzzle read, "Warm toasted ba_els with lo_ and cream cheese."
And unfortunately, she got it wrong.
Her response was, "Warm toasted bagels with low and cream cheese." This was wrong, and the next contestant, Nina Lance, had a chance to guess.
With the correct response of "Warm toasted bagels with lox and cream cheese," Nina won the house minimum of $1000 for the round.
Lox consists of brined salmon fillets, which originate from Scandinavia.
The city's Jewish population popularized putting lox on bagels with cream cheese.
The moment caused quite a stir on social media, with many reacting to Angie's inability to guess the correct response when she had so few missing letters in the puzzle.
"I would never show my face again," a user said after watching the contestant guess "low" instead of lox."
Another Twitter user asked, "Who's never heard of LOX." many other users agreed that the answer should have been a no-brainer.
As it turns out, not everyone knows what lox is. Some defended Angie, admitting that they had no idea what lox was, either.
If anything, some fans saw this as a teaching moment. After all, they got to learn what lox is.
She made fun of her blunder on her Facebook account (which has since been moved to private), stating that her appearance on Wheel of Fortune would have "a few embarrassing moments."
Angie may have lost out on the puzzle, but she still managed to win $7300 worth of cash and prizes, which landed her in third place overall.
There have been plenty of awkward or embarrassing moments and mishaps on the show over its decades on the air.
Host Pat Sajak, who has been Wheel's host for the majority of its run, seems to be at the center of many of its blunders.
In the viral moment, a contestant moved to pick up the wedge before guessing a letter, and Pat had to awkwardly stop her and remind her of the rules.
"I kept thinking of doing something else with a leak, and I didn't think that was it," the contestant, Kate said, referring to the puzzle, whose answer ended up being "fixing a leak." This caused Pat to drop the prize card, prompting laughter from the audience.
h/t New York Post
