My Swap Wife

Reality shows are to television as potato chips are to food. For a short time, a new reality show can be the most delicious thing on. But after you've eaten several hands full, you start to feel sick to your stomach.

This is the week that I've officially turned on Wife Swap. For a few weeks in a row, I've found that I uncharacteristically didn't want to watch. The episodes that were starting looked to be just like other episodes (or maybe the same ones) that I had already seen. But I've come to realize that pretty much all of the episodes are exactly the same, and that I've had enough. Just like potato chips.

If you've somehow missed this show, the basic idea is that they take two women who are as opposite as they could possibly be, and make them switch homes for a couple of weeks. Hilarity ensues. A couple of extreme examples include the switching of a bible thumper with a Wiccan and of a black lady with a racist.

Although it would land me a quick trip to divorce court, I like to imagine what kind of swap wife I would get if I signed us up.

She would be a "stay at home and watch soap opera" type. She would probably lecture me on the importance of having an adult in the home all day (we don't have kids, by the way), and of how I'm wasting my life by going to work.

She wouldn't deal with the money. She might even come to me and ask if she could spend money on groceries or shoes or something like that. This would be a disaster, as I would grant unfettered access to the check book, and we would be broke in no time.

She would hate animals, and insist that my dogs and cats be relegated to yard-only pets.

She would be willing to let the cleanliness of the house go to pot. I probably woudn't notice, because with the animals outside, it would be cleaner than I'm used to anyway.

She would make me attend church, perhaps even on a weeknight. But then she would come home and live in a most-unholy way. For example, she would expect to be on the receiving end of charity. Or she might steal from our friends when they weren't looking. But by God, we wouldn't miss services on Wednesday night!

(Speaking of stealing from one's friends, someone -- probably Carmel -- lost a necklace at our house on Saturday. I got $40 from a pawn shop on Government Street. Hope I didn't get ripped off. If it was yours, let me know, and I'll tell you which pawn shop to visit so that you can buy it back.)

My swap wife definitely wouldn't appreciate football. She would probably be one of those who bitches when I want to watch an LSU game. By contrast, this past Sunday night, I went in to the bedroom after watching an HBO show. Mrs. theskinnyonbenny wasn't really paying attention to the bedroom TV, but to her credit, it was tuned to the NFL preseason game. It wasn't even a team with local interest, and the starters had long been benched. That's a wife for you!

My swap wife wouldn't drink, and would object to my drinking. This is probably what would cause us to hurl f-bombs at each other, which leads to the show's producers high-fiving and taking each other out for drinks to celebrate another succesful show.

My swap wife wouldn't whine when I want to watch junk on TV. Like Wife Swap.