The Bachelorette must be over, because last night I ended up watching Family Feud. I rationalize that this is acceptable because such shows are demonstrated to stave off early-onset dementia. I’m not kidding. About believing that.
The night’s first half-hour pitted two families against each other in traditional style: one family completely sucks while the patriarch of the other fails to mention that 4/5 of his kin were Rhodes scholars. It happens.
One of the first questions was something about, “which traffic sign do people say best represents their sex lives?” We’re supposed to emit a schoolgirl giggle. Which I do. Family A wins the showdown and padre brings the question back to his fam. In succession, each family member guesses things like, “Stop!” and “Yield!” which I’ve never thought represented my love life, but apparently more than accurately reflect the sexual standings of most sex offenders in a sticky studio in Burbank. Sadly, Family A loses the hand, despite what seems to be an expansive and sad level of knowledge of this area.
Family B is thrilled with Family A’s downfall and starts screaming alternate guesses. Al Roker starts at the end of the litter with Grandma, a St. Olaf type who answers with considerable verve, “Slippery When Wet.” I recoil. Al quickly shimmies along Family B’s panel, each shouting something slo-mo and unintelligible, and I’m wondering why no one save me and the cats has thrown up multiple times in their mouths. It takes them a little while, but they do.
(Take that, dementia. My reaction time is still faster than these dumb Americans!)
For a moment I’m distracted by the thought that Grandma B might be an aging Pamela des Barres.
I tune out for a little, clearly distracted by that new controversial and/or humorous post on your blog, and only re-engage when Al asks us what lies men tell at singles’ bars. Before I can grab my Cabernet and school him with something lame like, “let me count the wrrrrrrays, Wroker!” Team A’s rep brings it home to the fam with the intuitive “He’s single!” And then, as can only happen when 1) grandmas are the anchors for both everloving teams and 2) producers thwart efforts to feed old people their medication on time, Grandma B actually says, “I’m hung.” The music stops and somewhere even Anthony Michael Hall is embarrassed. Tell me, was there some sort of Inappropriate Octogenarian-Off of which I was unaware? Because I’m pretty sure I could find me a silver wig and show all y’all just what else Polident can do.
The cats continue to wretch and everyone on television titters uncomfortably, and I call my mother and proclaim as never before my appreciation for her and her childrearing and her inability to relax. Because at that moment, nothing, simply nothing, seems as lovable and wonderful and secure and Wonder bread wholesome as the woman who never leaves the house without her hosiery and her perfectly curled hair.
14 Comments
When I lie at bars, I say that I’m not hung.
Giggity giggity giggity!
I’m going to have to start DVR-ing The Feud. It sounds like GOLD.
But … but you missed the All Star Game! Which ran just a tad long. And long after I was asleep.
And don’t worry so. You will never be that grandma.
I was also watching the All-Star Game. I didn’t know Feud was going to have dirty old grandmothers.
SO well written.
Hysterical and deep. not easy to do.
I would say Caution would represent my romantic life pretty accurately.
Holy crap, that came on last night and I flipped the channel. I would have been on the floor had I witnessed that. If it’s possible, I bet Al Roker was blushing. “I’m hung” made me gag!
When I think of your mom, I think of the mom on Dead Like Me who was disgusted by the word ‘moist’…
I hate to admit it but, even though I’m a huge Twins fan and my boy Morneau was the big hero, I still didn’t watch the All Star Game. Or the Feud. I watched Tori & Dean. What the hell has happened to me? Stupid Oxygen Channel free preview. I watch this crap (plus TONS of Snapped) only because I don’t have the channel and I feel like I need to get my monies worth out of the freebie…
I would have gladly turned the All Star game off to watch Al Roker repeat “I’m hung” to see if it got any votes.
What I want to know is who this granny has been talking to. Is that what men in her day said to her? Do men today talk like that?
Or maybe she meant to say “I’m hungry,” and she was simply hoping for a bagel.
The number one answer had to be, “I hate these places. I never come here.”
How about “Merge”? Ooh ooh! Or “Dangerous Curves Ahead”? Teehee! “Icy”? What a fun and mildly disturbing game.
PS: Where I’m from, there was a street with a lot of speed bumps, but the signs called them “humps.” I’m not even going to touch that one.
Thanks for making me google Pamela des Barres. I may be the only rocker never to have googled her before.
And you’re really shortchanging the Feud. You didn’t even mention that Slippery When Wet came out of Larry the Cable Guy’s Meemaw’s piehole.
I just realized why I like your writing so much – you make me laugh even when I read your work sober.
So many days later: tee hee!