A New Reality Show

Someone needs to come up with a program to rival TLC's show, Extreme Couponers, called Pathetic Couponers.

This show will showcase a lady who spends three hours a day from Sunday to Tuesday organizing and reorganizing her coupons in anticipation of the release of the new weekly sale flyers from Publix, BiLo, and elsewhere. The woman stays awake to ridiculous hours registering, downloading, selecting, and printing all her coupons, only to discover she's sending all of it to a printer out of ink. Then the website tells her she's reached the maximum number of prints when she tries to correct herself and reprint.

There is much more for a second episode, which involves our heroine's courageous attempts at mental math as she stares blankly at a long shelf of yogurts and Pillsbury biscuits. Two of her girls play chatty Food Network stars shopping at a grocery store, while her two boys climb into a freezer. The same episode highlights the danger of the coupon dispenser, which the children discover will spit forth two coupons in succession, but must be smacked violently if it is to spit out a second batch. The pathetic couponer returns home discovering her children have proudly blessed her with 50 coupons for Almond Milk and stuffed them in the dry goods section of her accordion folder.

In the next episode our heroine decides to travel with a calculator and a pair of scissors. She prints her list, rifles through her coupons, neglects her children, but arrives at the checkout proudly holding her stack of coupons only to squint and see that half of them expired two days ago. She uses her savings to buy a pair of reading glasses.

Next week she dives into the perilous waters of FuelPerks as she discovers she can save $0.20 a gallon if she buys three specific items from a list. She excitedly discovers she has two coupons for each item, thus earning $0.40 off each gallon of gas. As she loads the six precious items into her cart, she wonders if she would in any other circumstance, spend $7.99 for something calling itself "clinical-strength" deodorant.

In the season finale our heroine sits at her desk and smiles ironically at the sight before her: the First, a cutout from a cereal box which details an offer from Kelloggs whereby she can receive a $10 gas gift card if she sends in 10 UPCs from their healthiest cereals (All Bran, Meuslix, Smart Start, etc.); the Second imploring her to take the BlastOButter Popcorn challenge to receive $5.00 in BlastOButter Popcorn coupons by agreeing to like their popcorn. Our heroine lifts them and squeals as she discovers a forgotten coupon for a free photobook from Shutterfly, only to see at the bottom of the stack, a homemade Mothers Day "coupon" for one free hug has expired.

Her head drops onto the desk before her.

Fade to black.

Massage Boy

Last week I offhandedly talked to the kids about what I envisioned them growing up to be:

Rose: housewife/moderately sized-church matushka/teacher/choir director;

Ella: housewife/CEO of something very important/mega-church matushka/nun;

Meggy: housewife/chef/grocery store manager/matushka;

Max: civil engineer/architect/priest/iconographer-monk;

Mark-o: soldier/priest.

After telling Mark-o my thoughts on his future, his reply was this: "I want to be a 'massage boy' too so I can meet girls."

Even though they were tempted, none of the kids mentioned how this could be problematic if he also wanted to be a priest.

When I asked him this evening about his "massage boy" aspirations, he said he changed it to football player and baseball player. I wonder if his motivation is different from his earlier one--even though the results might be the same.

I just love my kids.