So Big Brother started last night, which inevitably brings up the subject of reality shows. Our favorite, hands down, is The Amazing Race and my husband often expresses a desire to run the Race.
I usually snort. Whatever, dude.
First, I don’t run. Ever. Jogging around the Wii resort island looking for Super Mario statues kicks my ass. Running across India when it’s 105 degrees, looking for a little yellow flag? Yeah, not so much.
Plus, we don’t travel well together. Actually, we travel extremely well together by car. But by plane? We did it once (okay, technically twice since we came home) and I’ll never do it again. People who know us wouldn’t recognize us in an airport, where we turn on each other in an incredibly vicious way. And the poor guy whose job it is to push the bleep button? He’d have Carpal Tunnel within five minutes of the cameras rolling. We might be the only Amazing Race viewers who actually believed Jonathon & Victoria (season 6) when they said they weren’t really like that at home and that they had a good marriage because, quite frankly, while traveling we’d make them look like mushy, smoochy newlyweds.
The only time we’ve ever flown together, we went to a swanky ski resort in Colorado for a family wedding, which meant flying into Denver. As an aside, I’m not sure how people from Colorado breathe, since there’s NO FREAKIN’ OXYGEN there. I was also five months pregnant with SK.
One thing airports like? Escalators. Sadly, I’m very, very afraid of escalators. I’m not sure how exactly they’re going to kill me, but I have no doubt they will. I stand at the top (or the bottom) and do my counting horse impression. Lifting my right foot, pawing at the air, trying to find the right moment to risk death. You’ve seen people do that at the top of an escalator before stepping on. That’s all I do, since I don’t actually step on. After about ten minutes of that, we had the following conversation:
Mr. S: Bleep bleep bleeping bleep bleep escalator. Let’s find a bleeping bleep bleeping bleep elevator.
Me: Bleep bleep you bleeping bleep bleep bleep.
We eventually found an elevator. Later, perhaps on the return trip, but I’m not sure, we came upon another escalator. His reaction?
Mr. S: Oh, bleep. Bleep bleep bleeping bleep.
I just stepped onto the damn thing. He was a little peeved, of course, since he was convinced my first brush with the escalator would cause us to miss a plane I don’t think had even pulled up to the gate yet and that I was just screwing with him the first time, but whatever.
What he didn’t understand was that I’d reached that state of marital bliss where I didn’t care if the escalator sucked me in by my hair and chewed me up like ground beef. I would rather be fatally mangled by a rogue escalator than spend one more minute with him.
Traveling by plane with the Staceys would be a little like going into Hell’s Kitchen and offering Chef Ramsay some Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Explosive, scary and it looks like somebody’s going down.
But he thinks we could do The Amazing Race?
I told him he’s welcome to try, but he has to find some other sucker to run it with him. (And, quite frankly, in 18 years I’ve seen my husband run…once? Have another cigar, dude.)
If you could be on any of the reality TV shows, which would you do?
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Love The Amazing Race. Biker Dude & I could so do that together. And yes there’d be much cussing and yelling at each other, but we’d laugh about cussing each other out ten minutes later. Then again there’s the running. No running here either. Okay, so maybe not. Oh and I hate flying, so yeah, that could be bad. So maybe not the Amazing Race. Dammit.
Survivor – I have often thought my husband should do Survivor (notice I said him. Not me. Nope. I itch watching the thirty nine days of no bathing, no blow dryers, no toothbrushes. Ick.). Nothing fazes him, he’s tough and there’s nothing he won’t eat. I figure if he could survive 12 months in the jungles of Vietnam, he could survive Survivor. Then again, with his mouth he’d piss off the entire tribe in the first 5 minutes and be voted off first, so that might be a drawback. Heh.
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I could have done Beauty and the Geek if they had an old, not so beauty version.
No Survivor, I’m with Jaci when it comes to the bugs. No Big Brother since I don’t have any interesting stories to tell.
I would love the Amazing Race, but I’m not much of a traveler and I don’t think they would let me take my pups.
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LOL! I understand the escalators. I’m usually okay with them, but every year when we go to Dragon*con, I have to face the escalator of DOOM. Almost 3 stories tall, you can’t even see to top of the dang thing when you are at the bottom. I always manage to get on there with my luggage but it takes a while. When it’s time to go home, it’s not a problem at all. That escalator is all that’s standing between me and my car. After 4 days of being around 50,000 people, I don’t car if I roll down it, as long as I get away from them.
As for being on a reality show, no. Never ever ever!
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And here I thought I was the only person in the world with an irrational fear of escalators. Glad to know I’m not alone in my terror.
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I don’t watch reality TV (don’t watch much TV at all these days), but your post made me laugh so much that my son looked like he was scared of me. Oops.
I’m surrounded by in-laws and other family members that have no trouble packing and traveling. My husband and I end up starting every trip being totally pissed at each other because of the packing thing. I can’t even name all of the issues we have with that because I don’t have that much time to type.
Then if we have to fly…oh no. I get so stressed out at airport security. I try to make sure I wear nothing metal so that I don’t have to go through a second time or be wanded. My husband tries to see how much metal he can wear and still go through. Can he wear his class ring, wedding band and belt buckle? No? Can he just remove one and get through the second time? I. Hate. It. I’ve now got a metal hip. Woo. Hoo. My doctor assures me it won’t set off metal detectors. Everyone else who has metal hips say they get wanded and frisked at airports, schools, government building. Yay. My husband’s reaction? “‘Cause you do so well traveling anyway!” He thinks it’s hilarious that I will always have to be wanded from now on. >:-(
We have a great relationship at home when we’re not traveling. But that means that every single family vacation or holiday travel starts off on the wrong foot. I’d rather hide in my house and not have to see anyone.
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My sister was afraid of escalators. Security would turn them off for her so she could climb them like stairs. I don’t like escalators. They unnerve me, especially if I’m dragging a rolling bag behind me.
I would be on The Girls Next Door. I like the pool at The mansion.
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I love the saga. Especially since I have lived it.
Every time I see an escalator….there is divorce in my future.
Actually, right before take off, it’s hell to pay.
For EVEREYONE.
My husband doesn’t fly well at all
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Hahahahaha. no competing in reality shows for me and hubster, but…this is too precious and so spot on.
“What he didn’t understand was that I’d reached that state of marital bliss where I didn’t care if the escalator sucked me in by my hair and chewed me up like ground beef. I would rather be fatally mangled by a rogue escalator than spend one more minute with him.”
Ah, marital bliss. We’ve had those moments ourselves.