Keeping Up With Extreme Couponing Toddlers In Tiaras Who Know Not What To Wear

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Sorry I haven't written in awhile, but we just got access to Netflix Instant Streaming.


Since we haven't had access to instant TV shows for years, I have been catching up on Frasier and Desperate Housewives.  But I've also become addicted to crap "reality" TV.  My drug-of-the-moment is Extreme Couponing, a show that follows coupon fanatics on their shopping attempts to pay, for instance, less than $30 for $500-worth of items. 

I'm not sure why I like the show so much; perhaps it's because each segment is only 12 minutes long, which is fabulous for my short attention span.  I think it's also a "fascination with the abomination"-type thing: I just can't wrap my head around spending 35 hours a week clipping coupons so that you can have 15 years of deodorant for free.  I don't get how they make it work without going crazy.

I have only one friend (that I know of) who is a thrifty couponer, though I guess I can't classify her as "extreme" since she has a real job and a family that doesn't think she's absolutely nuts.  But she's able to create lovely baskets for visiting guests for pennies on the dollar and have a nice stockpile in her pantry that she's gotten by paying less than $10 a trip.  I find her process quite fascinating, and kind of want to learn more.  But then I remember that I'm lazy, so I go watch TV instead.

If Extreme Couponing is my drug-of-the-moment, apparently TLC is my dealer.  Extreme Couponing was just a gateway drug: watching it sucked me back in to Toddlers & Tiaras, DC Cupcakes, CakeBoss, Long Island Medium, Four Weddings, Best Food Ever, and, of course, What Not To Wear.  I'm hooked (on some more than others).

Bee has walked in on me several times watching crap TV and promptly made disparaging remarks. 

"We've only had Instant Streaming for three weeks, and I already want to get rid of it," he snorted last week.

"But then how will you finish watching all 5 seasons of Breaking Bad?" I asked, without taking my eyes from the screen.

That shut him up. 

I watch these shows in large part because I'm actually studying the people on them.  I'm also studying the absurdity of the "reality" genre.  I am posing a lot of deep, philosophical questions to myself with every episode I view (the fact that there are no deep philosophical questions to pose explains why I only made it through half an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians).  So, then, aren't my reality programs as worthwhile as Bee's meth-addiction programs?

I guess he doesn't see it that way, though. 

Signs You May Have A Crap Reality TV Problem

• You watch Crap Reality TV in secret
• You make up reasons to justify Crap Reality TV
• You encourage the rest of the household to take long bike rides so you have time to watch Crap Reality TV
• You use your 15 minutes of free time to watch Crap Reality TV instead of showering
• You sometimes feel a little guilty about watching Crap Reality TV
• You have blackout sessions where you don't remember what you've watched on Crap Reality TV

Anyway, since I've been busy hiding my crap reality TV obsession from Bee's censure, I watch it while he's off doing worthwhile things and Mr. C's either with him, asleep, or somewhere distracted with a playdate.  These stolen moments of near-solitude used to be when I blogged.  So now I have two vices vying for my attention.

How do I balance my need to stare sightlessly at a TV screen with my need to inform the world of my every banal thought and feeling?

Oh, you poor Toxic Housewife: what a quandary!