The price is wrong, bitch!

We haven't said much about Bob Barker's imminent departure from "The Price is Right," a show whose longevity was comforting: one of the few things in life we can count on. This story hits the right degree of affection, snark, and poignancy:

Just the sound of it feels, somehow nostalgically, like being in bed with the flu. ("Come on down!" roars the announcer, Rich Fields -- who replaced the late Rod Roddy in 2003, who replaced Johnny Olson in 1986 -- as you beg some 7Up and toast to stay on down.) There is the sound of it starting at 11 a.m., over those gooey-warm CBS airwaves, just when the day is still technically young and yet already somehow wasted. It feels like skipping class again and again, the MWF 10:30 section of Lit 125: The Emerging Self.

The meticulousness of the preservation job done to Barker every morning is as perfect an example as any of what Hollywood can buy:

Barker is 83 now. He's essentially the longest, oldest, most continuous anything on the air. At a recent taping of the game show in the spangly-sparkly CBS studio long ago named in his honor, he is wearing one of his perfectly fitted navy blue suits and a periwinkle blue tie. His face, neck and hands are layered in stage makeup the hue of pulverized Nevada, so much that you're not sure where it ends and the man begins. His hair (hair?) is snow white; he stopped dyeing it many seasons ago in a nod to the inevitable. "What are you going to do after [you retire]?" an audience member shouts out during a commercial break.

"Well, I plan to do a little more drinking," Barker deadpans.