I admit it. I'm addicted. All you have to do is throw some moderately interesting people into an obviously contrived situation and let the cameras roll. I'm hooked. I am a snob about it though. If I watch the first episode and it seems too stupid, or sappy, or just too fist pumping-y (Jersey Shore anyone?) I only will watch it if there is absolutely nothing else on. But I still watch it. The more train-wreckish the show, the more I am hooked.
For example, I just watched America's Next Top Model. I don't think there is a better advertisement for teaching girls that they aren't enough without makeup, fashion and rocking hair. Mr. Kat Lady and I have come up with a controversial show to follow it on Wednesday nights. It's called "Eat a G-- D---- Sandwich and Have Some Self Esteem on the Side." And then there's the Bachelor. What lessons do little girls learn about love? Watching a busload of women discarded one by one for often ridiculously minor things teaches girls that they have to be Polly Perfect all the time. Can I pass out the Anorexia now?
And then there are the "Reality Competition" shows. These are my true addiction. Survivor, Big Brother, Amazing Race, and one that was on a now cancelled network that was called Solitary. I have to admit that the backbiting of the first two are a bit much, but then there are the characters you fall in love with from the minute you see them. Rupert, Sugar, Bob with the bowtie...you get the idea. And of course once I pick my favorites, I have to assign my villains. Russell, Richard Hatch, Parvati...(who came up with that name anyway? It sounds like something you would eat with meatballs and marinara.) By the point I have my favorites and my hate list, there's no going back. I am stuck watching them every week. I am a reality TV sheep.
If they asked me to be on any reality show, it would have to be The Amazing Race. I am ready and willing, CBS...just tell me when and where. I've already weeded my potential partner list to two: Mr. Kat Lady and my biker friend. I bet I could provide some great TV, but they'd probably have to bleep and blur a lot... Next thing you know, I'll be assaulting you with my wit via the boobtube!
I wish Solitary was still around. That was one trippy show. The whole premise was to put each contestant in a windowless room with no sleep, barely any food or water, and make them do ridiculous competitions until they gave up or went nuts. That's reality! (or Guantanamo Bay...)
Reality TV is a curse I continue to lay upon myself. It would help if they would stop coming up with new crazy premises that I get sucked into. Or maybe it would help if I turned off the TV...but everything DVRs anyway. I wonder if I could sell a cat reality show based on Three's Company...hmmm....off to draw that one up!
-Kat Lady
The random musings I manage to pull out of my slightly damaged mind. Also, humor may be involved.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Blast from the past...
So I told you guys that this post would take us back to high school. Had I known then what I am sure of now, life would have been much easier, but not necessarily as interesting. High school was rough for me because I had no self esteem and an overbearing (understatement) mother. She was a running joke at the school because without fail she would show up and for lack of a better word, invade my life. Needless to say, this made me look like a "mommy's-girl," which was not true in the least. I did everything I could to get me and my Geo Metro as far as I could from her. At one point I would show up at school before 7 am and not leave until after the last sports event around 9. The true story I am about to tell you is a mere shade of the crazy things she pulled on me during my teenage years.
Flashback to 2000- my junior year.
I was taking Home Economics, which had recently been given the more politically correct name of Family and Consumer Sciences. We'll just call it Chaos. Somewhere in February we started the "relationships and sex" section of FACS. Being that my class was 8 people (6 low achievers, my friend and I) we often had less scheduled classes. We were usually rowdy and often in trouble with the teacher, but never sent to the Principal. We had been looking forward to this section of the class for the whole semester! Being that we live in the midwest it was more about holding hands and abstinence than relationships and sex. Still, we got the chance to take home these robotic babies to prove we were not yet ready to procreate. (Mind you, two of the girls in the class were pregnant or already had a baby.)
There were 4 babies. 3 white babies and a black/asian one. I am assuming they were aiming (and missed) for a bi-racial baby. Anyway, the teacher thought it appropriate to give the odd baby out to me. Mind you, my mother is what I like to call "situationally racist." The day I was scheduled to take the baby for the weekend had slipped my mind and suddenly I had a black robot baby to take home to show my mother. This wasn't going to go well. I wasn't due home until late, so I figured I would just sneak it in after they were asleep. My car being tiny, I had to shove the car seat in the back. The baby looked freakishly real. I decided to visit a friend before the games began that night. I called and checked in with my mom. She was hysterical.
Jeeeeeaaannnn Annnnnnnn what have you done! (I'm really confused...has someone died?) You should have told us if you were "in trouble!" (Oh, GOD, she thinks I got pregnant and had a baby between 7 am and 4 pm today?) That *only black kid in my class* is the father, isn't he? (At this point I had to break in and explain.)
Why didn't they give you a white baby? (My mother assumes I am white, and refuses to acknowledge the other races in my lineage. I am adopted.) I'm going to have to talk to Mrs. *Home Ec Teacher* about this. I said ok, and she hung up.
What the teacher hadn't told me about my controversial (to my mother) baby is that it was EXTREMELY sensitive. If I looked at it wrong, it cried. Demons would have been jealous of that horrid baby's yowling. And it had a glitch. Normally those type of babies stop crying when you put a key in their back. (I know, that's so realistic, right? LOL) My baby would cry for two hours nonstop, then turn off. Key or no. I'm sure this didn't help my mother learn to be racially tolerant.
The next Monday morning, my mom followed me to school and went straight to the principal. Mrs. *Home Ec Teacher* gave my child a defective black baby! I want her to get full credit for this assignment because she was given the wrong baby. Mr. *Principal* had dealt with her before and quickly agreed to have the teacher award full credit. My mother can be a force to reckon with, and by this point all of my teachers usually just gave in.
Over that weekend I had gotten over 10 pointless racial lectures about dating. By the time the assignment was over, I was so scared of babies that I wanted nothing to do with sex until I was married.
Congrats Mrs. *Home Ec Teacher.* You knew exactly what you were doing.
-Kat Lady
Flashback to 2000- my junior year.
I was taking Home Economics, which had recently been given the more politically correct name of Family and Consumer Sciences. We'll just call it Chaos. Somewhere in February we started the "relationships and sex" section of FACS. Being that my class was 8 people (6 low achievers, my friend and I) we often had less scheduled classes. We were usually rowdy and often in trouble with the teacher, but never sent to the Principal. We had been looking forward to this section of the class for the whole semester! Being that we live in the midwest it was more about holding hands and abstinence than relationships and sex. Still, we got the chance to take home these robotic babies to prove we were not yet ready to procreate. (Mind you, two of the girls in the class were pregnant or already had a baby.)
There were 4 babies. 3 white babies and a black/asian one. I am assuming they were aiming (and missed) for a bi-racial baby. Anyway, the teacher thought it appropriate to give the odd baby out to me. Mind you, my mother is what I like to call "situationally racist." The day I was scheduled to take the baby for the weekend had slipped my mind and suddenly I had a black robot baby to take home to show my mother. This wasn't going to go well. I wasn't due home until late, so I figured I would just sneak it in after they were asleep. My car being tiny, I had to shove the car seat in the back. The baby looked freakishly real. I decided to visit a friend before the games began that night. I called and checked in with my mom. She was hysterical.
Jeeeeeaaannnn Annnnnnnn what have you done! (I'm really confused...has someone died?) You should have told us if you were "in trouble!" (Oh, GOD, she thinks I got pregnant and had a baby between 7 am and 4 pm today?) That *only black kid in my class* is the father, isn't he? (At this point I had to break in and explain.)
Why didn't they give you a white baby? (My mother assumes I am white, and refuses to acknowledge the other races in my lineage. I am adopted.) I'm going to have to talk to Mrs. *Home Ec Teacher* about this. I said ok, and she hung up.
What the teacher hadn't told me about my controversial (to my mother) baby is that it was EXTREMELY sensitive. If I looked at it wrong, it cried. Demons would have been jealous of that horrid baby's yowling. And it had a glitch. Normally those type of babies stop crying when you put a key in their back. (I know, that's so realistic, right? LOL) My baby would cry for two hours nonstop, then turn off. Key or no. I'm sure this didn't help my mother learn to be racially tolerant.
The next Monday morning, my mom followed me to school and went straight to the principal. Mrs. *Home Ec Teacher* gave my child a defective black baby! I want her to get full credit for this assignment because she was given the wrong baby. Mr. *Principal* had dealt with her before and quickly agreed to have the teacher award full credit. My mother can be a force to reckon with, and by this point all of my teachers usually just gave in.
Over that weekend I had gotten over 10 pointless racial lectures about dating. By the time the assignment was over, I was so scared of babies that I wanted nothing to do with sex until I was married.
Congrats Mrs. *Home Ec Teacher.* You knew exactly what you were doing.
-Kat Lady
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