I know it’s terrible, time-wasting, intelligence-sucking, feeding-the-machine behavior but … there it is! I can’t stop watching reality TV. And you know what? It doesn’t even have to be GOOD TV… especially if it’s about polygamists.

I have no idea why. Before you get all Freudian on me, I don’t *secretly* want to be a polygamist. I swear. I used to get in trouble in kindergarten because I was NOT GOOD AT SHARING. I hogged the Play-Doh and monopolized the Barbies.

Some things never change. I don’t want to share my favorite pen, the last piece of cheesecake or my margarita–that means there is no way I’d ever be good at sharing a husband. Within 24 hours of a new wife joining the house, I’d go all Jerry Springer, taking off my earrings, WWF psycho on her. Nothing but a bad Cops episode waiting to happen.

Yet, that is what shows like Sister Wives and My 5 Wives want to convince us…that sharing a husband is just an alternative lifestyle of some kind and they are not strange or twisted and why can’t we all just get along. Really, I don’t care if somebody wants to share a man, and I don’t think that many people really care what they do. I mean, really–it’s already apparently hard enough to find a good guy, so why not just share somebody else’s, if that’s what your into. More power to them! However I find the whole thing embarrassingly fascinating, and totally admit to watching my iPad late into the night with baited breath, just waiting to see what those crazy husband-sharers are gonna do next.

I especially liked the episode where they were FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES from … who? NOBODY WAS CHASING THEM. In fact, despite the fact that two of the cars had tire blow outs nobody was sent to the San Quentin or anything. Several shots of tearful wives crying and saying stuff like “I hate that we have to hide. This isn’t the America I thought it was.”

I’m sorry but YOU HAVE A TV SHOW. How is that hiding? That’s about as subtle as an elderly streaker at the Superbowl. Or Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction. It’s kind of the opposite of hiding.Still, I find myself on their side. I find myself muttering, “Geez, just let them live their lives!” to nobody in particular.

To be fair, it almost doesn’t matter what happens because any normal event is obviously made 100% more stressful when you throw in a couple of extra wives and 98 extra kids. At some point, you know a kid’s gonna go missing. How long would it really take before someone noticed?

That’s just good plotting, folks.

Take a routine event–for example, running out of trash bags. Now, in my house, I would just guilt trip someone into going to the store to buy more.End of story.

Not on the polygamist shows. They have to have a tearful family meeting about who’s turn it is to buy trash bags, then they take a vote on which trash bags to buy (draw string or grip, Glad or Hefty, scented or unscented–you can’t be too careful because with 98 kids somebody’s got to be allergic to lavender-scented trash bags.) After the voting, each spouse must give a short wrap-up of what just happened. There are tears and concessions. Then, the breath-taking footage of the van driving away to the grocery store.

Really, it’s not that interesting. Actually, it’s kind of mind-numbing, like too much fig newtons. The first couple are pretty good but before I know it I’ve just eaten a sleeve of them and can’t even find my teeth beneath the goo.

My husband is completely baffled by this. He sometimes wanders in to the kitchen to get a drink and I’m caught in the act.

Lee: Oh geez. Not this show again.

Me: (nervously) Oh, haha. I know. It’s dumb. I was just…watching this while I saw what else was on. I think there’s some British show…oh here it is!

Lee (totally not buying it): Haven’t you already watched this one a couple of times?

Me: Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Lee: I’m pretty sure you have.

Me (sweating): Ok, but to be fair I took Ambien the last time I watched it and don’t remember if they got the mortgage loans or not.

I don’t know WHY I keep tuning in to find out if Kody and his wives are gonna get the mortgage loans for their polygamist community they are (not so quietly) building in Las Vegas. I’m obviously disturbed, right?  It’s super boring 99% of the time, and they try to play up the “tension” to make good TV. I hate myself after I turn it off. It’s like a bad addiction. One day they’ll call me and I will be on My Strange Addiction because of my obsessive viewing of polygamist TV.

I really can’t wait for the new season of Honey Boo Boo.