TV Trance

I am going to have to completely ban myself from watching television. Normally I don't watch anyhow but when I do, I get all fixated on some of the dumbest shit out there. And after last night's fiasco, I think I am officially done.

I planned on going to bed early, knowing I had a busy day ahead, it seemed liked a logical thing to do. TV always makes my eyes sleepy, so I put it on. I clicked through every channel, taking mental note of what looked worthy of flipping back to. I had four channels in my mental file cabinet. I didn't know the names of the shows, but they seemed somewhat interesting at a glance.

Yes, I know that cable has a guide that you can checkout so you don't have to exhaust your thumb, but not being really familiar with many shows, that service is useless to me.

The last time I did this sort of thing, months ago, should have taught me a lesson. That night I stayed awake until 3 a.m. watching none other than "Dog: The Bounty Hunter". They were having a marathon and my eyeballs would not get sleepy, they would not look away. My brain would not tell my thumb to hit power off. I was in a trance.

For those of you who have never seen this show, I'll give you some background. Dog, yes, he really calls himself that, is a reformed bad guy. He is a born again Christian. Sometimes he wears an overly tight T-shirt, and sometimes he wears a wife beater, (AKA a dego-T, AKA that white undershirt your dad used to wear under his work shirt) underneath a black leather vest. He wears either way too tight black jeans or leather pants, and when I say tight, I mean like male camel toe tight. His face is riddled with what can only be described as a bad case of teenage acne scars, which incidentally, it appears as if he wears a ton of foundation to cover up.

His hair, well, his hair is getting its own paragraph. He has a mullet, long, greasy, bleached blonde with dark roots, teased on top with a crazy ducktail thing going on up there and more hairspray than an 80's glam band.

The show is based in Hawaii and he is a bounty hunter. He is out there getting the bad guys. But he doesn't just get them and turn them over to the authorities, oh no. He preaches to them once they are caught, he shares his own personal tale of coming out of the gutter and then makes them pray with him and his trusty sidekicks.

Oh, you wonder about his sidekicks? Well, sure, I'd be happy to tell you about them. His main helper is his lovely bride. She has a similar style as her hubby but with much more cleavage. She is the type, "If you got it flaunt it." and boy, oh boy, does she ever. I'm not a guy or a lesbian but I feel quite confident saying most of the time people who think like that, are not the ones who should be flaunting.

Mrs. Dog is exactly what you might imagine if Mattel came out with a real Trailer Trash Barbie doll. She likes to yell and swear a lot, then prays later with the group. She wears about eight pounds of makeup (blue eye shadow, you can never have enough blue eye shadow or pink blush) and she is overweight. I have to add, the fact that Mrs. Dog is overweight would not have disturbed me had she not followed the flaunt it philosophy by always being dressed in mini-skirts and mini-shorts and mini-tops. She also made it a point to pick on how the criminals were dressed. She said they were tacky and said some looked like they came out of the Salvation Army closet. Talk about balls!

Besides letting her humungous boobs hang out, she has bleached blonde and highly teased hair, four-inch-long fake nails, which she had to repeatedly replace and they showed the process.

The other three sidekicks are young, in their 20s and look like what you might see on Jerry Springer or Cops.

To give Dog and his team some credit, they have captured 6,000 bad guys to date.

So, about last night. Yes, I know this is already long and you may have already thrown up a little in your mouth at the thought of Dog and crew. I'll be brief.

I couldn't remember the channel that I wanted to flip back to most, I punched in the wrong number. I know I couldn't have been interested in something on the Sci-Fi Channel, hmmm.

I paused, I watched, I lost control of my thumb, I was in a trance. The show, "Scare Tactics" was on. It was the first time I'd ever heard about it, let alone seen it.

"Her friends set her up? They are trying to scare the shit out of her? Not like practical jokes stuff but with fake murder and blood and fake cops? This is fucking crazy shit! How did this become a show? Why would anyone want to freak someone out like this? I wonder if anyone ever had a fucking heart attack over one of their stunts. I would kill my friends if they set me up like this! I'd be in jail right this very moment! Unfuckingbelievable!

Fixated, I watched the second part. One girl was tricked by her friends into thinking she was getting a job as a babysitter. The girl who was supposed to be the kid in need of a sitter waited for her mom to step out of the room. She told the babysitter that her mom kidnapped her and kept her in a cage.

The little girl was a damn good actress. She whispered "Help me, please, help me! I miss my daddy." By now the girl who is being tricked is in tears. Of course the fake mom comes out and wants to know what the little girl has said, orders her back into her cage and has a screaming fit. Holding a missing child poster with the little girl's picture on it, the babysitter tried to talk her way out of getting put in the cage or being murdered.

The babysitter swears on her mother that she won't tell if they just let her leave. The fake mother/kidnapper asks, "Are you scared?" The babysitter admits that she is. The fake mom then says, "You don't have to be scared. You're on Scare Tactics, your friend set you up."

I'm sure anyone who watches that show knows, the whole time these scenes play out, you as the audience, are thinking of what you would do. I'm no different, I had already mentally planned my escape with the little girl, seeing the lamp I would have bashed the mother in the head with. There would be no doubt, my ass would have been in jail.

So if you are a friend of mine and value my freedom, do not call that show and try to trick me!

This process I go through is very similar to a drinking binge. I have puked up enough reality TV to last me quite some time. I am officially back on the wagon.