villains, the family and “friends” who supply the humiliating videos of dear ol’ Mom wearing her beloved fuzzy house-coat and bunny slippers in the privacy (ha-ha!) of her own home.
Reality TV is addictive, though. How else do you explain this disappointing vignette of my married life?
Not long ago, there was a moving and provocative documentary on PBS that detailed, in a most compelling way, the horrible racial strife in 1950s Mississippi. I knew it would be excellent, the kind of programming that makes even the no-TV nuts get their heads out of their subtitled “films” and rethink their position.
Of course, I didn’t watch it. I had to
see Joe Millionaire,
in which a muscle-bound and rather vacant cutie pie courts greedy women who
think
he’s a millionaire when, in fact, he’s a bulldozer operator.
Oh, hons, I am
so
ashamed.
Joe Millionaire?
My husband walked through the living room just as I flipped to the documentary so he’d think I was smart instead of the kind of person who secretly enjoys those awful fat baby shows on
Maury
and
Dr. Phil.
(And speaking of which, am I the only one to make the fat baby-fat mama connection? Hell-oooo.)
But I flipped channels too late. I was so busted. The moment had that kind of awful shame attached to it that is usually reserved for wolfing the last piece of cold pizza over the sink (where calories never count).
“Joe Millionaire?”
he said. His tone hovered somewhere between disapproval and pity. I guess he felt like Connie Chung, who probably tells her girlfriends, “I thought I wasmarrying a serious journalist, and now he has this show where he has contests to see who can pull the fat baby off the tricycle. I can hardly hold my head up at the network correspondents’ dinner every year.”
What is wrong with me? With our nation? Why, during a sneak preview of Fox’s
Bridezilla,
which follows the weddings of the nation’s most whiniest bitches, did I think, “Oh, baby, I am
so
TiVo-ing that.”
Or Fox’s
High School Reunion.
Typically, Fox likes lots of skin, so they plan to keep reunions to ten years, instead of, say, thirty, when it’s doubtful anyone wants to bounce around the hot tub in a thong and conversations might revolve around who drove what route to get there and how steel-cut oatmeal had turned their lives and colons around.
Taking a tip from Fox, NBC’s
Fear Factor
selects only female contestants with exceedingly large fake breasts and no measurable amount of body fat. These women are the kind who can convincingly make suggestive comments while devouring a plate of pig rectum. Hey, it’s a gift.
I’m not proud of my viewing habits, but I can quit anytime I like. Well. Almost anytime. Dr. Phil has a 180-pound two-year-old toddler coming up, and I think he’s looking for a wife.
15
Does Addiction to “Days of Our Lives”
Mean That I Don’t Actually Have One?
(A Life, That Is)
It’s time to fess up: I have been imprisoned by a serious addiction for more than twenty-five years. The prison is in effect only from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, but still.
My addiction to the idiotic
Days of Our Lives
is hugely embarrassing. I mean on the order of the time I had a big fight with my bank and emerged victorious only to discover that I had spinach glued to
every single one of my teeth.
Damn those veggie burritos.
Anyway, yes, I know that it is a stupid, stupid TV show full of cardboard cutout characters and poorly acted “plots.” No matter. I find
Days
as irresistible as Horton family matriarch Grandma Alice’s homemade doughnuts, which the poor ol’ thing trots out for weddings, funerals, and serial killings.
HOPE BRADY : Gran, the Salem serial killer has just struck again! My father, my mother-in-law, and my stepfather-in-law are all dead!
MRS. H .: Have another doughnut, dear.
But, lately, something strange has been happening on
Days:
It’s gotten interesting.
See, the serial killer who is killing off the cast one by one,
Reality TV is addictive, though. How else do you explain this disappointing vignette of my married life?
Not long ago, there was a moving and provocative documentary on PBS that detailed, in a most compelling way, the horrible racial strife in 1950s Mississippi. I knew it would be excellent, the kind of programming that makes even the no-TV nuts get their heads out of their subtitled “films” and rethink their position.
Of course, I didn’t watch it. I had to
see Joe Millionaire,
in which a muscle-bound and rather vacant cutie pie courts greedy women who
think
he’s a millionaire when, in fact, he’s a bulldozer operator.
Oh, hons, I am
so
ashamed.
Joe Millionaire?
My husband walked through the living room just as I flipped to the documentary so he’d think I was smart instead of the kind of person who secretly enjoys those awful fat baby shows on
Maury
and
Dr. Phil.
(And speaking of which, am I the only one to make the fat baby-fat mama connection? Hell-oooo.)
But I flipped channels too late. I was so busted. The moment had that kind of awful shame attached to it that is usually reserved for wolfing the last piece of cold pizza over the sink (where calories never count).
“Joe Millionaire?”
he said. His tone hovered somewhere between disapproval and pity. I guess he felt like Connie Chung, who probably tells her girlfriends, “I thought I wasmarrying a serious journalist, and now he has this show where he has contests to see who can pull the fat baby off the tricycle. I can hardly hold my head up at the network correspondents’ dinner every year.”
What is wrong with me? With our nation? Why, during a sneak preview of Fox’s
Bridezilla,
which follows the weddings of the nation’s most whiniest bitches, did I think, “Oh, baby, I am
so
TiVo-ing that.”
Or Fox’s
High School Reunion.
Typically, Fox likes lots of skin, so they plan to keep reunions to ten years, instead of, say, thirty, when it’s doubtful anyone wants to bounce around the hot tub in a thong and conversations might revolve around who drove what route to get there and how steel-cut oatmeal had turned their lives and colons around.
Taking a tip from Fox, NBC’s
Fear Factor
selects only female contestants with exceedingly large fake breasts and no measurable amount of body fat. These women are the kind who can convincingly make suggestive comments while devouring a plate of pig rectum. Hey, it’s a gift.
I’m not proud of my viewing habits, but I can quit anytime I like. Well. Almost anytime. Dr. Phil has a 180-pound two-year-old toddler coming up, and I think he’s looking for a wife.
15
Does Addiction to “Days of Our Lives”
Mean That I Don’t Actually Have One?
(A Life, That Is)
It’s time to fess up: I have been imprisoned by a serious addiction for more than twenty-five years. The prison is in effect only from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, but still.
My addiction to the idiotic
Days of Our Lives
is hugely embarrassing. I mean on the order of the time I had a big fight with my bank and emerged victorious only to discover that I had spinach glued to
every single one of my teeth.
Damn those veggie burritos.
Anyway, yes, I know that it is a stupid, stupid TV show full of cardboard cutout characters and poorly acted “plots.” No matter. I find
Days
as irresistible as Horton family matriarch Grandma Alice’s homemade doughnuts, which the poor ol’ thing trots out for weddings, funerals, and serial killings.
HOPE BRADY : Gran, the Salem serial killer has just struck again! My father, my mother-in-law, and my stepfather-in-law are all dead!
MRS. H .: Have another doughnut, dear.
But, lately, something strange has been happening on
Days:
It’s gotten interesting.
See, the serial killer who is killing off the cast one by one,
Similar Books
