Author: Big Mama

Words really can’t express the stress I experienced yesterday when I realized that on tap for evening television was not only a special two-hour episode of “24”, but also two glorious hours of “The Bachelor” finale followed by a one-hour “After the Rose” special.

For those of y’all who struggle with the math, that adds up to FIVE HOURS of quality T.V. viewing packed into one evening. It’s a burden I didn’t take lightly.

It’s times like these that I give thanks for the inventor of the DVR because no way could I entrust this kind of abundance of viewing riches to a VCR that was known to warp a tape and leave me wondering how various episodes of “E.R.” ended. Of course who knew then that I would still have the option of watching “E.R.” sixteen years later?

An option I decline, by the way. If there was ever a show that needed to be put out of its misery, then “E.R.” is it. Well, and “Caillou”. But that’s more about my misery.

So last night I knew P and I would watch “24” while it was actually on. It’s one of the few shows that we both enjoy, primarily because it’s one of the few shows he watches that isn’t called “Tracks Across Africa” or “Where the Wild Boar Grows”.

But here’s my problem with “24”. Every season there will come a point where they push the limit from believable to completely unbelievable and P will say a few words he probably shouldn’t, get up off the couch, and announce he’s done with “24” FOREVER. In fact, there was a point last night when I believe he actually said, “Jack Bauer is dead to me”.

Most of the time, by which I mean ALL OF THE TIME, I am not really aware of all the tactical and weaponry flaws committed that make the show so utterly unbelievable. The plot points that tend to stretch my imagination are usually things like the President’s wife stabbing him with a kiwi knife or the fact that I’m pretty sure I wear jeans in a bigger size than Keifer Sutherland so how can he be all that tough?

The bottom line is that due to some ludicrous plot lines that took place on last night’s episode, we have reached the point where we’re done with “24”. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure we’ve ever actually seen the end of any season. It’s just what we do.

Thankfully, after “24” was over last night, P flipped through the channels and happened to catch the end of Ted Nugent’s hunting show entitled “Spirit of the Wild” and was blessed to see Uncle Ted (as Ted Nugent calls himself because don’t we all call ourselves Uncle) playing the National Anthem at Texas Stadium. It was the only thing that could have restored his faith in the power of television.

In the meantime, I knew I had three hours of “Bachelor” viewing just waiting for me on the DVR, but there isn’t enough money or curiosity in the world to make me watch it while P was still awake. He’d just ruin it with all his mocking and eye-rolling. So I completely avoided email, Twitter and Facebook because I was afraid someone would spill the beans.

It was like a 45 minute media fast and I was beginning to feel a little faint.

Thankfully, P went to bed and I was able to watch the entire train wreck with the benefit of fast-forwarding through all the gratuitous walks down memory lane that are the hallmark of any “Bachelor” finale.

I believe my feelings about the finale are best summed up in a letter to the ABC network.

Dear ABC Network,

P.S.P.S. Please let Melissa know she’s better off. She’d be wiping that Nancy boy’s tears for the rest of her life and sometimes you need a man to be the strong one. Maybe you could introduce her to Jack Bauer.

If you don’t watch T.V. and spend your time reading books and seeking actual knowledge, then I apologize for this entire post. It’s just that when you spend five hours (really just three hours because of the marvel that is the DVR) then it’s pretty much all you have to talk about.

My deepest apologies go out to Mac Davis. Apparently, he isn’t dead.

I don’t know why I thought Mac was no longer with us, but I made the same mistake with Ed McMahon about two years ago. I guess it’s true what they say; out of sight, out of mind. And I am so glad that Mac isn’t gone because it means there still might be a chance that I’ll get to hear him sing “Tequila Sheila” in person.

They just don’t make songs like that anymore.

Yesterday I committed myself to cleaning the house and I decided I might as well start in the bowels (no pun intended) of hell, otherwise known as the master bathroom. As I cleaned, I spent a lot of time deep in thought. I thought about how nice it used to be when we had Cata clean the house even though her abuse of Pledge Grab-its almost drove us to the poorhouse and I thought about how people that are overly dramatic about inconsequential things get on my nerves.

And then I realized I was about to die from the fumes of all the cleaning products and laid on the bathroom floor and wept for the years that Cata came on a weekly basis. Why is my life so hard? How long, O Lord, must I clean my own toilets?

In all reality, I think I almost died at the hands of Tilex. I sprayed the entire shower stall liberally with the Tilex and forgot to turn on the bathroom vent. When I felt my throat begin to burn, I knew something was amiss and rushed to air out the bathroom. Because when my time on this earth is through, I don’t want to be wearing rubber gloves and holding a scrub brush.

Anyway, every time I clean the shower I can’t help but think of Jose. When P and I added on to our house six years ago, Jose was the man who tiled our new shower stall in our new master bathroom. We had originally hired a man named Mr. Baldo of “Baldo and Son Construction” to tile the shower and other various jobs, but Mr. Baldo took off with our money before he ever completed all the work we’d hired him to do.

Of course, we shouldn’t have been shocked by this turn of events considering that he’d already admitted to us that he didn’t actually have a son, even though his business was named “Baldo AND SON”. I guess he just felt that the “AND SON” gave him an air of legitimacy, much like Fred Sanford.

We found ourselves without a tile guy and with a shower that desperately needed to be tiled. One of our sub-contractors mentioned that his brother-in-law, Jose, might be available to do some tile work, so we called him. He was more than happy to do the work, his price was reasonable and, best of all, he could start the next day.

Jose showed up promptly the next morning with his bucket of grout and began laying tile in the shower. He turned out to be quite a chatty fellow and while he was working began to carry on a conversation with P. They talked about the neighborhood and our construction project and then Jose said, “You know? I didn’t even know how to install tile until last week, but I bought this video at Home Depot and now I think I know what I’m doing.”

Well.

That certainly is comforting, Jose.

You would think he might have wanted to keep that bit of information to himself, but I think Jose was a firm believer in being transparent. And, as it turned out, he was also a firm believer in something else.

P returned to the job site the next morning and could tell that Jose had left in a hurry. His tools were strewn about the bathroom and he hadn’t covered the bucket of grout. When Jose showed up that morning, P asked him what had happened. Jose informed P that our house was haunted by ghosts and we needed to have some sort of exorcism.

Okay, sure. Let’s get that scheduled.

When pressed further, Jose based this suspicion on the fact that he’d heard voices after everyone left. Never mind the fact that we live in a corner house where people are constantly walking by and every window in the house was left open. The logical conclusion was that we had us some ghosts.

We never did have the house exorcised and, shockingly, we’ve never had any more ghost issues. However, there is something in our house that’s extremely frightening. The tile job in our shower.

It’s painfully obvious that we didn’t need a priest as much as we needed someone with more tile experience than an hour spent watching a video from Home Depot.