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Proving when you’re in fourth place you’ll try even harder to screw up our culture, ABC has announced there have a new reality show in their fall lineup called Wife Swap.
It’s based on a British show also called Wife Swap, which won high ratings as well as what had previously been prestigious awards... that is, until they gave one to Wife Swap.
The premise of the show is simple- two wives swap places and “domestic chores” for 10 days. The network claims the show is about how these two housewives will relate to their new surroundings. Am I too cynical when I suggest Americans are not going to tune in to see how family A responds to housewife B’s meatloaf? Oh, Americans will tune in, but only to see if after 6 kids and 18 years of scintillating monogamy, the husbands and their newly swapped wives are going to, as the British would say, “Do a bit of the old slap and tickle,” not how they respond to the meatloaf.
Conservative Christian groups, and even some sane groups, are concerned Wife Swap will legitimize or even champion infidelity. They have a point. TV changes behavior. On NBC’s Fear Factor people recently transported maggots in their mouth in a who can carry the most maggots in their mouth contest, and I have to assume they did it only because they’re on TV. Why else would anybody do that? Because there was nothing good on TV that night?
Personally, I believe that watching Wife Swap may actually keep people from real life infidelity. When millions tune in and see a toddler crying because there’s a new Mommy in the hot tub the viewers are going to look at their stable monogamous lives... without much sex, but none-the-less stable, and be happy... as much as you can without frequent slap and tickle.
So maybe Wife Swap won’t be the ruin of us all. But if you ever see a reality show called Mormon Wife Swap, where two guys in Utah send a busload of their wives to each other’s farm, then that hard, rusty thing you feel your feet scraping against probably is the bottom of the cultural barrel. Try to kick off and swim for the top like the depraved madman that television has made you.
I had a travel day from hell last weekend. Why? The plane broke. So, Five hours after getting to the airport I was finally sitting on a working plane headed to... Sacramento, to connect to San Jose to connect to Los Angeles... because, quote, "Mr. Bedore, that's the best we can do."
Not true, the best you can do is a foot massage in first class on the next direct flight out of here. And if you’re not going to do that be honest and say "Mr. Bedore, we already have your money and you can't walk home from here, so shut up and enjoy Sacramento."
Anyway, we’re finally in the air, I'm a little jacked up, and for whatever reason I started browsing through that sky mall catalog that sells all those gadgets. And to get some of my frustration out I began adding my own nasty little epithets to each product's slug line.
Like the Tootsie Tanner, an ultra violet device that tans your feet. The slug line said "Unsightly sock lines will be a thing of the past." To which I added-- If you're so stupid you forgot to take your shoes off at the beach and want to waste $169.95. After saying that I felt myself decompressing.
There was an ultra sonic device to stop annoying noise from your neighbor's pet and the slug line was "The safe and effective way to solve your barking dog problem." To which I added-- That doesn't involve poisoned meat or jail time. My blood pressure slid down to near normal.
Another slug-line said "Carry a 12 ½ foot telescoping ladder in the trunk of your car." Because you never know when you might get stuck in traffic and want to hang yourself for only $339.
There was a picture of a backyard pool with a cooler sitting in an inner tube ringed by cup holders which were filled with cocktails and the owner's name was stenciled on the side of the cooler. "Personalized free! Insulated floating cooler." For the swimming alcoholic that doesn't care to be anonymous.
On page 133 there was a picture of a sirloin steak fresh off the grill with someone's initials burned into it. "Personalized branding iron for your barbecue." For the bachelor cook who can't wait to not get laid.
There was a cat door on pg. 97 that was activated to open by a magnet worn on your pet's collar. "Electro_magnetic cat door." Hey Dads. Minus the magnet, kitty can't get in. Your wife will never suspect you or your money back.
On page 90 there was a bracelet with the words ‘Protect this woman' engraved on the inside of the band and precious stones on the outside. "Protect this woman." Because kidnappers will take orders from jewelry.
What's my point? If you're flying this summer and don't want to turn into a walking_talking muscle spasm, don't see yourself as an airline customer who has rights or human dignity, instead see yourself in a flying divorce court. You just want to get out of there with as little financial and emotional damage as possible. And one way to maintain sanity is to re_write the Sky Mall catalog.
Ever wonder what you would do if you were President? Would you try to raise taxes? Lower taxes? Star Wars? If I was President, Stars Wars would remain a movie.
But what do I know? If I was as smart as the people running the country I’d be running the country. So I must not be that smart. Or, am I? Are you? You might be thinking- Tim, the average citizen isn’t qualified to lead the country. Really? Can the average citizen balance their checkbook? Most do. Would the average citizen pay $640 for a toilet seat or subsidize tobacco farmers while trying to convince people not to smoke? I think not.
Does the average citizen think we need leaders who would spend the average citizen’s money responsibly, someone like, oh let’s say, an average citizen?
If you do then support my plan. I call it Tim’s Democracy. We cancel all elections for Congress. No more voting. We pick our Congress just like jury duty. You open the phone book, start calling people, take what you get. If you don’t have a good excuse you have to be a senator for a month.
No more campaigns, no lobbyists, no undue influence. Tim’s Democracy would work because we’re a lot smarter and our politicians are a lot dumber than we think. Sure, with Timian Democracy you might end up with some perverts, schnooks, deadbeats, dodo’s, nincompoops, pin heads, numb nuts, lame brains, Bozo’s and button-down neer-do-wells in Congress. But that’s what we’ve got in there now and we can’t get rid of them. With my plan if you get an idiot for a congressman, they’re done in a month and then you call someone else.
Sure, a pharmacist who became a Senator for a month might vote to invade Canada because they have cheaper prescription drugs or a frazzled parent may want abortion rights retroactive to the age of five or a pro-gun guy might want his own howitzer to scare kids out of his yard but most of the people in the people’s Congress will be sane and say, No, and here’s the beauty part- all these senators would have to go back home in a month and face their neighbors who have to live with the laws and tax cuts that produce the lousy schools and roads and whatever else that they voted in. And that’s when Timian Democracy get’s interesting.
The rich people of L.A. often spend three months of the summer vacationing in the south of France or the family villa in Sicily. My wife and daughter and I just got back from our vacation---- a week in Chisago Lakes, Minnesota.
Chisago Lakes is the little Minnesota town where my wife's family has their "lake cabin." That's how they refer to it. I refer to the Lake Cabin as Camp Mildew. For my wife the Lake Cabin is a magical place filled with childhood memories of idyllic summers spent water skiing and hunting frogs. For me the lake cabin is filled with mold and possibly chipmunks.
When I contemplate a vacation at the Lake Cabin I imagine floating on an inner tube or teaching my daughter how to dive off the dock. What I forget to contemplate are the tornadoes and the horse flies. If you don't know what horseflies are they're what you'd get if you gave a pit bull wings.
And for some reason when you go jogging down dirt roads, past swamps near the Lake Cabin large numbers of horse flies feel they have to kill you. You might think horse flies would be deterred by swinging a slimy tree branch that you, in a panic, pulled out of their swamp. Well, you'd be wrong. Swinging a stick at them is crack to horse flies. They get all amped up and more fiercly defend their swamp, the swamp being the Vatican of the horse fly universe.
Of course the sight of a skinny man running erratically, spinning in circles, swearing and wildly swinging an algae covered stick through the air is also agitating to farm dogs. Farm dogs are what you get when you take a German Shepard and train him to chase down and shred anyone or anything that moves. Thank God for the algae covered stick.
But here's the thing. My 6 year old daughter had a great time at the Lake Cabin. She fished and found turtles and drove the speedboat and now my daughter, just like her mother, will, for the rest of her life, have wonderful, indelible memories of own personal Disneyland, the Lake Cabin.
And as my daughter gets older, just like her mother, she will want to share the Lake Cabin with her grammar school and high school and college friends and later on with her own family.
Which means when my daughter gets to the age where she'll, naturally, want to have absolutely nothing to do with her parents, from age 12 or 13 and then well on into her 30's or 40's, she will be forced to spend time with us because that's the price she'll have to pay to be at the Lake Cabin.
So, even though there's horse flies and tornadoes and a heavy dead-fish/musk scent to everything, and did I mention no cable TV or internet access and Lyme disease?, the Lake Cabin vacation is really a wonderfully devious plan to condition our daughter to always spend time with her parents.
Not a bad trade off. Even though one of my horse fly bites is so bad it makes me look like I have a third nipple.
Maybe it's just me but when the Congress deals with gun legislation ducks seem more important than people. To protect the duck population in Wisconsin for example there are laws saying duck hunters can only use shotguns that load a maximum of three shells because the government knows duck hunters tend to get a little trigger happy at the sight of their hated enemy, the duck.
So why then can't we control the type of guns that people use to hunt people? Some of those fountain-of-lead/street-sweeper/hell weapons, that are now legal to buy, can hold dozens and dozens of shells. And it's much easier to sneak up on people than it is ducks. When you drive by a duck most of them jump up and fly away. But a lot of people don't even move when you drive by, so it's way too easy to hunt people.
We need more, not less restrictions on guns. How could a ten-day waiting period be a problem for legitimate gun purchasers, like hunters? No hunter gets all dressed up, tromps out into the woods, waits for a deer to walk by, raises his arms and then suddenly realizes... he doesn't own a gun. Even if that hunter rushed off to a store and could buy a gun right there on the spot, by the time he got back, the deer would be gone. Unless of course he's hunting right next to a Sport-mart.
Furthermore, legitimate gun owners don't need every type of gun ever made. For good reason, you've never been able to hunt squirrels with a bazooka. Obviously, if a rabid squirrel hater could launch rocket grenades at his despised, quick, tiny, moving grey terror targets it would be dangerous to the rest of the neighborhood and so it's against the law. Doesn't it also make sense to keep semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of high school drop-outs and disgruntled post office employees?
Well, not according to the National Rifle Association. Awhile back one of their guys said "If we allow the government to control what type of guns we can have they will then be able to tell us that you can't build a house with ten bedrooms, if that's what you want to do."
Hey goofball! The government can and does tell people what size house they can build. They're called zoning laws you lunatic. Ever hear of building codes?
And what kind of analogy is that anyway? Houses don't kill people. Unless you're the Wicked Witch of the East, then they do. When Dorothy and Toto and the house they flew in on, landed on the Wicked Witch of the East, it killed her, which totally hacked off the Wicked Witch of the West, who thankfully could not buy an automatic weapon due to the strict gun control laws in Munchkin Land.
Our government doesn't allow us to do all kinds of things and one of the most important things the government shouldn't allow anybody to do is kills lots of people at one time. We the people are at least as important as mallards.
And if our Congress won't restrict the guns that people use to hunt people they should at least institute a bag limit. I'm thinking two daddies per day. But no mommies or children under 80 pounds.
We Blue States are leaving you red states to form a more perfect union and you red states can even keep our married name, The United States.
Our new blue state country called New America, starts in California, goes up to Oregon, Washington, across Canada to grab Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and the rest of New England-- that's New America, you red states keep the rest. I haven't checked on this plan with Canada but, nobody whose in the Monkees says no to joining the Beatles, so Canada's in.
If you red staters want, all the normal business blue and red states do now can continue -- there'll be trade and commerce between our two countries, the Chicago Cubs will still play the Florida Marlins, it'll be business as usual.
You Red Staters can keep the Constitution and Bill of Rights, New America has copies and we're going to fix them anyway. Our second amendment will make it clear, for example, you can't buy a rocket launcher at a flea market. Little tweaks like that.
New America will have lots of religion, Baptists, Buddhists, Agnostics for Jesus, the whole range, just not in the public schools. No new "creation-ism" science books needed, here. Imagine the savings.
Abortion will be legal within limits but we're also going to finance tons of scary sex education in our schools, too, and soon we'll have tons fewer unwanted pregnancies than you. Our Blue State New America kids will know how and why what got into them got into them. Fewer doctor visits, imagine our savings....
We will split up the military, we blue staters pay for most of, but we'll share it with you. Our two nations certainly could, in the future, have a coalition of the willing, at times. But New America will be unwilling at other times. And because we won't be attacking nations that didn't attack us first, inflaming, for example, the whole of the already testy Arab world, again, imagine our savings.
We will have an energy policy that looks beyond oil. You can have Alaska if we can have Hawaii.
Electronic voting machines in New America will have a paper trail. That only seems fair. If I can get a piece of paper proving I paid for a Slurpee at 7/11, I should be able to get a piece of paper saying who I wanted to be the leader of the free world. Again, that only seems fair. In fact, that seems to be the essence of, hmmmm, (I'm scratching my chin) what was that again, oh yes, democracy.
This break up is going to be good for both of us because blue states generate a disproportionately huge amount of the tax revenue spent propping up you red states, again, imagine the savings for New America, and after we split you red states can prove what you can do when the government gets off your back. With no more spousal support from us keeping you down you red states will flourish and prosper and you'll soon forget we were ever married.
Vague But True®
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copyright 2004 Tim Bedore --- all rights reserved