Your personal incontinence counselor

When your spouse is basically bedridden for two months, only able to sit up and walk for limited amounts of time during the course of any day, most of your time is spent sitting or lying around the bedroom, watching TV.
The good thing about The Trophy Wife is she loves sports, so we watched the College World Series, the Women's Softball College World Series, the NBA Playoffs, the French Open, Wimbledon, Olympic trials ... anything of significant competition.
But good, live sports are not 24/7 (I'm sorry, I don't consider soccer "good, live sports"). So eventually you have to channel surf.
I've told the story before about how we, as parents, were very careful in what our kids watched. The Heir used to complain, "999 channels and I only get to watch three!" That wasn't quite right, but it was close.
In the last few months, I've discovered a lot of what fills those other 996 channels.
There is a lot of competition out there for the various shades of ESPN.
We've watched something called "Say Yes To The Dress,'' which is a show where these young girls who apparently crave the approval of their family and peers round up 8-10 of the most dysfunctional and discordant people she knows and brings them to this wedding dress store where the future bride hopes these basically unhappy and opinionated people will come to some agreement on what dress she should be married in.
My guess is the only reason she's even getting married is peer pressure. And if that sounds judgemental,well, that's pretty much the theme of the whole show - being judgmental.
The bride's posse typically includes the bride's mother and step-mother, who haven't spoken to each other since the bride's father left her mother for this other woman who is now her step-mom; sometimes she brings the groom, whose idea of the perfect wedding dress is more likely found in the winter catalogue of Victoria's Secret; there is often a grandmother who envisions her precious grandchild walking down the aisle wearing something more like what the Mother Superior wore in "The Flying Nun;'' then there are the "friends" who are either jealous that they aren't the one getting married, upset they will have to spend several hundred dollars on bridesmaid dresses they know they'll never wear again, or just plan ornery; and occasionally the bride will bring along a "wild card" that - seriously - one time was a gay ex-figure skater who wound up trying on wedding dresses himself (and deciding he looked better in the dress than the bride did, and I'm not making that up).
Needless to say, hilarity ensues.
Another great show is something called "Holmes Inspection,'' which stars this guy Holmes who resembles one of my favorite actors, Brian Dennehy (a great character actor who I always think of as either the bartender in "10" or the bad-guy-turned sheriff in "Silverado" or the beaten down but doggedly determined cop in "F/X").
What happens in this show is that a young couple have bought a house that resembles "Tara" after Sherman's Army left it for Savannah. Because of an inspector that must have been part of Billy Idol's entourage on that infamous Thailand tour where Idol trashed so many hotels the government reportedly called in the Army to tranquilize Billy and carry him out strapped down on a stretcher, the young couple managed to get a mortgage on this hovel.
But now they realize they have problems, so they call this guy Holmes. He comes in like a tough-guy, looking real disgusted at the condition of the house and just appalled that the Billy Idol-entourage survivor turned home inspector allowed this hovel to qualify for a mortgage "as is." Holmes walks through the house swinging a sledgehammer, saying things like, "Look at how easy this sledgehammer goes through this drywall! It's a tragedy!" and "Who puts single-pane glass in windows? See how easy this breaks? It's awful!" and goes to the basement where he pulls the dryer vent off the wall while the dryer is running, causing the room to fill with lint, at which point Holmes says something like, "This is tragedy waiting to happen. Imagine being down here cooking up some crystal meth when the burner tips over. Do you know how easy this would ignite? I can't believe this house passed inspection!"
Then Holmes gets this real serious look on his face, puts his arm around the young couple, and promises to "make things right'' -- which means bringing in every high end union contractor he knows, gutting the house, and refurbishing with the appliances from Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's former house at Heritage USA, stained glass windows from the Vatican, and so much granite you'd swear the back half of Stone Mountain has been cut away. What is never made clear is just how much it cost to "make things right."
And again, hilarity ensues.
There are other great shows, too. You'd never know cooking could be a competitive sport, but there is this show called "Chopped,'' where four chefs no one has ever heard of try to cook food to impress three chefs no one has ever heard of for a prize of $10,000. The catch is that the host starts each round by opening up a basket and pulling out these random items that the chefs have to use in making their dish.
What is amazing is that as the host pulls out random items - "Today we have garbanzo beans, three-day-old salmon, kiwi, and a shoe lace" - these chefs don't even bat an eye but immediately start running around cooking things as if they have been making dishes with this stuff their entire lives.
This is actually the one show I'd like to be on because I know how I'd win. No matter what came out of the basket - "prunes, platypus liver, micro fiber and granny's blue hair dye" - I'd roll it all in flour, deep fry it and wrap it in bacon. Let's face it, it doesn't matter what you serve, if it's fried and wrapped in bacon, it's going to taste great.
Which reminds me of this other show I watched one time, which might be the greatest gig on TV. There is this guy who looks and sounds like an emaciated version of the evil villain "Dr. Evil" from the Austin Powers movie. He gets total strangers to make him desserts every day. The first four competitors make him four desserts which he gets to eat all of, then he eliminates one and the remaining three guys whip up three new desserts which he gets to eat and then eliminate one more, only to have the final two put together two more incredible desserts which he alone gets to eat and then declares a winner!
Dr. Evil even gets to name the items he wants the desserts made from - how cool is that? I'd be sending out "cookies and cream ice cream, buttery pound cake, sprinkles, and syrup." I mean, what difference does it make? Dr. Evil is the only one who gets to eat any of it. The contestants are basically his personal dessert chefs.

Then there are shows about people going off to buy their first home; shows about people who can't decide whether to keep the house they live in but spend a small fortunate to redecorate it or sell it and move to a better house that already has all the done; and a show about people who leave the United States to find a new home in some third-world country, except they always make the third-world country sound like paradise.

Then there are the commercials. My favorite is the one for incontinence products, the one that says if you call in, you'll be able to talk to your very own "personal incontinence counselor."
I swear I'm not making that up.
Who knew there was such a thing as a "personal incontinence counselor?" Does it require training? What kind? Do you have to get licensed? Is this what tipped the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Obamacare?
All I know is the first time I heard this lady on TV tell me they had these people available to talk to me, I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants.
Good thing I now know where to find my own personal incontinence counselor.