Here’s the set-up of the scene:
Time: Last night
Where: My friend Allison’s apartment
Curtain rises: Allison and Sheila watch television, lying in Allison’s bed, as Charlie the cat stalks about, his body flat, his eyes wide-open and terrifying.
Allison and Sheila watch, in succession: “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance” (reality TV show #1) and then “Average Joe: Hawaii” (reality TV show #2).
As regular readers of this blog know, Sheila has no television.
So Sheila got completely sucked into the Roman coliseum of reality television.
The first show, in particular, HORRIFIED the innocent eyes of Sheila, who had spent the entire day immersed in Presidential quotations and the colossal minds of our Founding Fathers.
The show’s “plot” is out of a totalitarian society where the family unit becomes a property of the State. This girl has to convince her poor unsuspecting parents and siblings that she is actually going to marry this “big fat obnoxious guy”, who is actually an actor, hired to be as obnoxious as possible, hired to act like he is her fiance – and if she convinces all of them that this is not just an act and the real thing – she gets a million dollars.
You literally could not pay Sheila enough money to trick her mother like that – to make her mother weep on national television – just so Sheila could pocket a million bucks.
Sheila would do a lot of things for a million dollars – but she would never betray her family, and set them up to look like dipshits for all the world to see. She would never ever be able to tolerate looking at her parents’ baffled hurt faces without screaming out immediately, “It’s all an act! It’s all an act!”
It’s soulless. It’s awful. It’s disgusting.
And yet …
and yet …
Sheila couldn’t look away.
At one point, she exclaimed, in a rage, “This is HORRIBLE!” Long pause. Then: “I kind of never want it to end, though.”
Allison HOWLED.
Sheila participated in the trend. Sheila felt dirty afterwards.
And so, of course, Sheila invited herself over to Allison’s next Monday, for the season finale. So that Sheila can feel more dirty, and more ashamed, and more angry, and more disgusted …
It’s sick, I tell ya, sick.
I still can’t believe you don’t have a TV. It’s like you’re a caveperson or something.
Well – I have a TV – just no hook-up. I watch movies and shit. In my little cave.
A hookup isn’t that hard to do, just a matter of opening up the MDU box (unless there is a pole), removing a terminator and hooking up the cable with your apartment number.
This is all hypothetical, of course. I wouldn’t dream of telling somehow how to steal cable.
BTW…I hope you scrubbed after watching that show.
I believe I have already mentioned that Average Joe is my favorite train wreck….Lord, help me!
No multiple of millions of dollars would convince me to have anything to do with reality TV.
Neither will I look at it. Train wreck sure – reality TV, never!
Dear Sheila:
I also liken ‘reality TV’ (and that term is used just about as loosely as the steering on my old college-days ’59 VW) to a train-wreck, or to watching someone upchuck after the Tilt-A-Whirl – in all three cases, I’m horrified – yet compelled to watch.
I can lay claim to watching an episode of “Joe Millionaire” — perhaps it was my secret desire to watch a bunch of golddigging-heifer-gals get their comeuppance — or perhaps it was something deeper.
I can only imagine the proper Romans, after buying a ticket to the games, saying, “….it’s sick; I tell ya….”
Cheers!
-Will
Sheila, you must cure yourself! The only reality show I ever was even tempted to want to watch was the one with Johnny Rotten somewhere in Australia … but that didn’t end up happening.
CHiPs is soooo much better for you.
I’m with CW on this: I have yet to see a single episode of “reality” TV and intend to keep it that way. Although unlike him, I’m sure there’s some amount of money that would change my mind.
If you like that stuff, you HAVE to watch American Idol!! I am hooked, and you learn so much about auditioning from watching these people who stand up there and apologize for themselves and blame their performances on sinus infections. I am in Cranston now and made my parents watch it (who asked for you by the way and love you so much -“that Sheila is so beautiful and so smart”).
J
But what we rilly wanna know is, what was up with Charlie the cat? :-)
Jackie:
“That Sheila is so beautiful and so smart” – If only they knew of my “Average Joe” obsession
And Ken –
Charlie the cat is an alpha male. He could not bear the fact that he did not have Allison’s undivided attention. She and I sat around, talking, and he would jump up on counters, and push cups off with his paw, and then immediately look over at us, insolently, like, “What’re you gonna do about THAT?”
He treated me like a rival for the affections of Allison. Which, I suppose, i was.
Some reality shows are worse than others – that one where they had to find their way around the world didn’t seem so bad. And things like Road Rules, The Real World and Trading Spaces are OK.
However, anything that involves someone being humiliated or tortured for money – Survivor, Big Fat Boyfriend, Fear Factor, Marry A Millionaire, etc. – these all make me want to throw something at the TV. To quote the inimitable Bill the Cat (especially appropriate in this Presidential election year), “ACK!”
well shiela, you’ve let the cat out of the bag (so to speak). you’ve publically aired what we could have kept our own dirty shameful little secret….see you next monday.
allison
Allison –
Can’t wait.
That sound you hear is Western Civilization sliding into the abyss.
And it’s all Sheila’s and Allison’s fault…