It was 9:00 o’clock before I finally got to sit down and kick up my feet.  Loaded up with my favorite pajamas, a big bowl of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream and a cozy blanket, I eagerly clicked the remote to catch the opening credits of my favorite show du jour, Intervention.  Intervention is reality television slash documentary slash horror show and it is the best or shall I say worst of its kind.  It regales viewers during an hour long session with close-ups of crack heads, pill poppers, vodka swillers, broken homes, homeless people, broken dreams, dysfunctional family dealings and disturbing interviews with seriously hopelessly addicted folks.

My husband came in and plopped down beside me.  After watching an eleven year old hiccup and sob for five minutes because he thought he might find his mother dead, my husband said, “This is depressing,” and got up and left the room.

A litany of excuses ran through my mind; comebacks gathered on the tip of my tongue as I ensconced myself further into the couch cushions.  But after an eleven minute head shot of said mother mumbling incoherently about anything from point A to Z to X to G as she intermittently dozed off with cigarette in hand, I thought he might have a point.  And so I did the one thing it is so hard for me to do when reality television rears its’ ugly head.  I shut it off.

I have had a long history of being addicted to bad television.  It started almost twenty years ago with MTV’s The Real World, was maintained faithfully by Survivor and The Amazing Race, was buoyed by Joe Millionaire, Nanny 911, and Wife Swap and has ended here with depressing “real-life” documentaries about the less then savory aspects of the human race.

The truth of the matter is this:  I have a bad case of schadenfreude.  “Schadenwhat?” you say.  Schadenfreude, people, schadenfreude.  It’s a word the Germans use to describe taking delight in the misfortunes of others.  Simply put I enjoy the misery I am viewing because as far as yardsticks go to measure up to- reality TV’s is pretty short.  Compared to those people, I am amazingly smart, brilliant, beautiful, ethical, and loving.  I am a patient friend, a kind spouse and a brilliant mother.

I should have recognized the schadenfreude way back when in my late teens.  I was nineteen, pregnant, living at home and taking care of my dying Dad when I became addicted to Jerry Springer.  My life wasn’t so bad, how could it be when there were four hundred pound women with one tooth willing to parade around on stage wrapped in Saran Wrap bragging about dating their cousins.  Hell, I was just pregnant, poor, young and losing my Dad.  Life looked pretty good for me.  Hopes were high.

But how do I explain it now?  I’m thirty-six, happily married, own my own home, have a job I like and two wonderful kids.  Why would I freely engage in staring at a woman whose kids are using her for spit target practice or a family who spends all their time re-enacting medieval times, speaking in Old English and eating big slabs of meat off a wooden board with their fingers?  Once again I say Schadenfreude….schadenfreude.  Life’s good but it ain’t perfect and we are always measuring our happiness against someone else’s.  The thing is I’d like my standards to be a little higher so I’m going cold turkey.  If you ask me who the Mole is…I don’t know.  If you wonder whether the Bachelorette will ever find love…who am I to say?  Is Kari ever going to be made into prom queen…no clue.  Could you believe how much the chick from Florida spent on her sweet sixteen… how much, I haven’t the faintest. 

All this talk of reality TV is giving me the jitters.  My mouth is beginning to water.  My hands are starting to shake.  Schadenfreude is serious business, people,serious business.

P.S. I’m on the second day of my self-imposed celibacy from reality television.  After perusing the channel guide for approximately fourteen minutes I am realizing that there is not much else to watch besides reality television.  This may knock out two birds with one stone as apparently I am not going to be addicted to either reality television or television at all.