Guilty pleasures

I'm monitoring my spam intake. My e-mail program has an excellent spam filter, and it catches everything. But generally I go in and clean it out as quickly as I can. Today, just for fun (?), I let it accumulate, just to see how much I get. So far, we're up 21 messages. They are on the usual topics - you know, ways I can, um, enjoy my life more. Suggestions on earning money. Or offers of great pharmaceuticals. Tempting, but no thanks.

Watched American Idol, and they are rid of that rocker chick. Not only did she have that funky red streak in her hair, but I hated her voice last night. I don't care for that fakey pop-singer vibrato - you know, the way precocious 12-year-olds who think they belong on Broadway sing? It's annoying. But we're rid of her. And Sanjaya was saved - you rock, buddy! Way to go!

Along with American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, my girls and I have another guilty pleasure: House Hunters on HGTV. We love it - the best episodes are the ones where they look at three houses then you have to guess which one they buy.

Just like the buyers, we are on the edge of our seat. Will they get the house? Will their offer be accepted? Oh pleasepleaseplease!

The home buyers they highlight are such idiots! I wish I had a dollar for every one who bitched about a wall's paint color (then re-paint!) or walked into a room and said, Wow, Iove the windows in here (duh - it's a room, of course it has windows). You cannot imagine the level of scintillating conversation. They are obviously instructed to make small-talk about what they see, so make inane comments like, Love the crown molding. Nice space in here. Oh look - a garage. It's 30 minutes of stating the obvious (Wow - the house has indoor plumbing!)

Sometimes the homebuyers are awfully picky. Everyone needs three bedrooms, even if it's someone who is single. They bitch that the rooms are too small, the bathrooms too small, the kitchen doesn't have granite and stainless steel. Good grief - it's your first house. Sometimes they show a lower-end family who is happy to be able to afford anything, then one week they showed this couple with money who bought a literal mansion for just the two of them - and turned down certain houses that just weren't quite big enough for them.

Equally tiresome are the jokes about how the kitchen won't get used because the wife doesn't cook (though they are demanding that everything be top-of-the-line) and the jokes from the guy who says, The master closet may just be big enough for all my wife's shoes. Hahahaha ... you're so original.

Among our favorite moments:

• The woman named Lilly who married someone named Brian LIlly, thus her name is Lilly Lilly. Yes, she did change her name.
• The wife who said, in a chirpy, upbeat voice, Oh, this is so nice, to every single house she saw, even the one that was a total dump - you could tell she had trouble saying it, but she just could not bring herself to say, this is awful!
• The woman who needed outdoor space for her gourd-carving hobby.
• The couple who made sure the master bathroom was big enough for the wife to shut herself inside in order to make private phone calls. Every house, this is what she looked at. In the final scene, we laughed because the youngest kid, a toddler, is running out of the not-fenced-in yard, just after the dad has poured the kid a sippy cup full of Dr. Pepper. Where is the mother? Locked in the bathroom on the phone, we can assume.
• The couple who had to have physical contact at every second - they were all over each other constantly. What are you, junior high? Get over it already.
• The realtor partners nicknamed Ladybird and Rambo (?)
• The guy who kept saying, I need lots of space to work on my projects, said in a tone of voice that made you think he must have to ride the short bus. (But what he did with the house he bought was amazing ...)

The show is incredibly corny. The dialogue is awkward and mundane, almost to the point of idiocy.

Yet we watch it all the time. Nice to know my kids only watch quality television!