contact home links about where i've been n stuff

Monday, November 07, 2005

lie just a little

Dear Everyone:

If you should ever wake up one morning and hear a crazy man on a bullhorn yelling at you and your family from your front yard, telling you to pack up and get ready for a week's vacation and a makeover of your crappy, crappy house, do me a favor.

Shed a tear.

I really like watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition. I really don't like when the family recieves their FREE HOUSE and walks through it as if they were inspectors: "Hm. Would you look at that." "My, that's nice." "Oh, wooooooooooooooow."

Are you kidding me?

Let's review. You, in all your squalor, took it upon yourself to borrow someone's video camera (because you don't have your own, right? Take it from me, if there are wires hanging from your living room ceiling that you need to touch together to make the lights come on - don't get buzzed! - you can't afford a camcorder) and show ABC the sad state in which you live (and I don't mean Iowa). Your hope was that someone would take pity on your situation and give you something...anything...LIKE A NEW HOUSE. And guess what? They showed up. They picked you, they showed your movie to the crying design team, and decided to send you to Orlando for a week (at no cost to you, I presume). Now, maybe you thought you were getting a back porch and a Florida Room added on. But, then again, you're no dummy - you've watched the show before. You know that they're going to deem your abode a sty and knock it down. What will they put in its place? A similar-sized home? Nay. A freakin' mansion, as far as you're concerned. With actual furniture. New furniture. And fireplaces. And kitchens out of magazines. And fairy-tale bedrooms, complete with actual fairies. Huge televisions. Bidets. Elevators. Bedroom sets. Did I mention ELEVATORS?????

And that's just inside. Outside, they install your pool, and your batting cages, and your swingsets, and your tennis courts. They professionally design your landscaping. They till your fields and plant your alfalfa. They fill your garages with free vehicles.

That's not all.

While you're schmoozing with Minnie & Mickey, they also raise money through a benefit concert for you, set up a trust for your kids' college, and pay off your mortgages.

You arrive home in a limo to the welcoming fiasco of your entire neighborhood and then some. Together with your family, you shout, "MOVE THAT BUS!", and, viola.

Here's where we need some direction. I want to see the kids jumping up and down, or running around in the street. I want to see high-5s and cartwheels. I want to see parents crumbling in thankful humility for what they've just been given. Most of all, I want to see tears. I do NOT want to see, "Oh, my. That is a nice house."

Now, I realize that some of you may be thinking, "Well, some people just don't cry." Bull. I don't care. If I'm crying, they should be. I know that a new house is not the answer to all the world's problems, but if you get one, a huge, new house, for free, show us that we're all on the same page.

Cry a little. For me.

15 comments:

Carina said...

Amen. Just like when people win a car on The Price is Right and they just stand there and smile a little. YOU WON A CAR. You should at least give yourself a hernia trying to do a backflip. Some consideration for the viewing public would be appropriate!

Show Dick some respect.

~j. said...

Exactly. We should take a road trip to Television City and show them how it's done.

Will milk be made available?

Anonymous said...

I think that just in case they don't get a proper response from the families, they should have a huge wrecking ball suspended behind the house, ready to...wreck...or maybe another family on the side, one who would appreciate the new house
"oh, you think the house is nice? well, thank you - it belongs to them. you're welcome for the trip to florida - now you're homeless, you ungrateful little..."
you get the picture.
now that's a show we'd watch, and perhaps cry (laughing)

wendysue said...

I was SO thinking this exact same thing when I watched it last night!! Some of the girls reactions were great but the mother. . .just a slight change in her face, "oh, isn't that nice. . " as she runs her hand across her new marble top bathroom counter top!! I would be flying around the room!!!

Anonymous said...

i agree with the noonans... you mean to tell me not everyone had to connect live wires in their living room to turn lights on? c'mon!!!

Bek said...

You guys nailed it. The best one was the house they built for the soldier, Lori something. She was best friends with that Jessica girl that was a hostgae. She was Native American and left two children behind. They lived with her parents in a trailer on the reservation. The reaction and love and gratitude those kids and people showed was really touching. It wasn't too over the top but it was real and sincere. :-)

QueenScarlett said...

BRAVO!!! I swear some people can be such pricks... ok I said it... and I wanted to stay it in Noonans comment ..."you ungrateful little... PRICK"

I don't care if they are just pulse-less deadbeats in "real" life... off camera... you're on TV FAKE it... or something...otherwise we all just HATE you. We don't know...but now we all know you're a bunch of braying donkeys, thank you very much.

And... I vote for the wrecking ball waiting in the wings... some people need a bit of fear in their hearts to prove they're even worth the air they're breathing.

OH... WE're going to DISNEYLAND! ;-) YAY!!! (for Thanksgiving)

La Yen said...

Remember the family that took in the other family whose parents had died? They then kicked the kids out as soon as they got their stuff. Nice. The kids are suing abc. Nicer. Because the only way to make something free sweeter is if you can get over while receiving it!
I also wish that Ty would stop yelling and being stupid. He is in his 40s. He is going to pull a nut.

Bek said...

Jen G,

That family lives just down the road from us here. It really is a sad thing that they did. Sure a family full of orphaned teenagers is a tricky thing to handle--but THAT is something to think about BEFORE taking them in and letting ABC give you a house. Sad, sad, sad.

R

Suzie Petunia said...

That show was really great the first 10 times... but I have seen what bawling, touched designers look like a few times now. And I have the script memorized: "There really couldn't be a more *sniff* deserving family."

They really kicked the kids out? I hadn't heard. Now THAT is something to cry about!

QueenScarlett said...

Maybe I'm weird... but Preston and Paulie are my favorite guys on that show. And yes, I do find them attractive in their own way. Can't help it... am attracted to Colin Firth, Gabriel Byrne and the like...

Carina said...

I remembered my favorite (least favorite?) moment of TV ingratitude of all time!

What Not To Wear's $50,000 surprise makeover complete with trip to Paris to receive ginourmous amounts of couture clothing. The chick they picked didn't change facial expressions once. She could have been handed a gift certificate to Mervyns and she would have reacted the same way. She sucked the life out of every designer showroom she walked into, it was heart-breaking.

I promise, dear Stacey and Clinton, that if you pick me for a $50,000 wardrobe replete with Chanel, McQueen, Fendi,Chloe, Gucci, and friends, that I will give you a SHOW!
Scream, cry, sob, holla, swearin', partial nudity, I will engage in all of that, if that be the secret to a designer wardrobe.

I wanted to smack that chick out of her Manolos, grab the foot candy and run! Ungrateful little....

: STEVE : said...

Tonight's episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition was totally lame. It seemed more like a game show than anything. There was no emotion, no touching story line, nothing. Just a family saying stuff like, "oh, I was hoping they'd give me stainless steel!!!" Totally lame.

~j. said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one that heard that comment. As if it's what she had asked for for Christmas.

Shar said...

That just made me laugh so hard. Thanks for making my day!