Sunday, August 13, 2006

Time for Brian to get up on his soapbox

Brian decided that my blog should be a place where he can complain about stuff. Tonight while we were watching TV, he found a lot to talk about.
1. Sell This House! We love the show 'Sell This House' on A&E. One of my favorite parts of the show is seeing what people thought constituted 'ready to show' (the other is seeing what crazily accessorized outfit Tanya Memme will be wearing, or whether Roger's freaking huge arms have gotten any bigger). I mean, people have so much crap, its astounding! And sometimes they don't bother cleaning! Seriously, one woman had her open house with dirty dishes in the sink. On one of the eps we saw tonight, this girl was trying to sell her house with several unfinished remodeling projects - like, the kitchen cabinets didn't have doors or drawer pulls. Mostly its just that people have insane amounts of clutter. Brian's fairly anal retentive, and I'm a reasonable decorator, so our house always looks good when we are selling. When we tried to sell this house last year, all the realtors who I interviewed said it showed like a model. Thank you, thank you. But really, when we do put our place on the market? We seriously de-clutter. We're like the freaking masters of decluttering. Brian more than me, but I help. Anyhow, on this show, the people have always had their house on the market for like, ever, and can't figure out why its not selling. Brian's soapbox moment for Sell This House is: What is wrong with these people's realtors?? Seriously. Are they high? Why have they not told the sellers what some of their problems are? Usually when they show the front of the house, you can see the sign advertising who the real estate agent is. Brian hopes these agents are suitably embarassed.

2. Sixteen Freaking Children! When we ran out of 'Sell this House' episodes in the DVR tonight, the TV was tuned into the Discovery Health Channel (which I secretly love). This show was on called '14 Children and Pregnant Again!' This family is 'letting God dictate how many children they have'. Super. Not to spoil it for you, but the next episode is called 'Raising 16 Children', and this woman hasn't hit menopause yet, so I'm sure this won't be the end of it either. The dad's name is Jim Bob. I'm just saying. Oh look. They have their own website. Brian's soapbox moment here is: ... Oh...actually, I'm sorry, his head just exploded.

One thing we can't figure out is, what happened to this woman? Look here. She's cute. Now, lets look here. OMG, the hair. And this picture is 4 years old, the hair has really only gotten worse. People, its a mullet. Its a mullet/1980s pouffy bangs combo. And its like twenty feet long. How do you have time to deal with this hair when you have 16 children? I don't understand. Also (and you're really missing out here by looking at that picture, because its so much better on the show), how do you have time to apply 6 inches of pink blush and garish red lipstick when you have 16 children? Really, the blush was out of control.

Also we're wondering how you have time to handmake all these dresses for your children? Because really, handmade is the only thing that can explain this.

Ok: Brian's soapbox moment for this is: These people seem to be being supported in large part by the generosity of others, which is great except: IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD IT, STOP HAVING FREAKING KIDS! Actually, I'm not totally sure about that as we really could not bear to watch the mullet anymore, and we turned the show off. But we did get that impression. And would it surprise you, really? I mean, who COULD afford 16 children?

One thing I will say is that the woman didn't appear to be crazy. The whole thing reminded me a little bit of Andrea Yates, the woman who killed all of her kids by drowning them in the bathtub. She was clearly suffering from a bad, extended case of postpartum depression. I always had the feeling that her husband was forcing her to continue to have kids. It obviously affected her mental state significantly, but he seemed to also have this attitude of 'letting God dictate how many children they had', despite what it was doing to his wife. So anyhow, she didn't seem to be as forced into it as I always felt like Andrea Yates seemed to be.

I'm sure there was another soapbox issue that Brian wanted me to discuss, but I can't remember it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I bought my condo, it was WAY worse than anything you've seen on that show. Granted, it was because it wasn't officially on the market and my realtor worked for his realtor, and I think it was because he really didn't want to clean, but it was a bachelor pad through and through. It was a combination of Star Trek meets D&D meets preserved butterflies meets Barney Fife. It's a good thing I have vision. :)

Andrew said...

Did you notice that Jim Bob used to be a Arkansas state representative?

Yikes!

JM said...

I've got to agree with Brian about the bad advice from the realtor. They SHOULD be embarrassed. But then again, we wouldn't be able to have as much fun with the show.