Recollections of an Eccentric Child

When I was about six years old, my sister and I begged my parents to let us have a dog. After the tragic disappearance of our German Shepherd/Wolf mix (Yes, wolf. Don't ask), we longed for the companionship of a loyal canine once again. That friendship arrived in the form of Coffee, a mutt mix given to us from some neighbors down the road. Coffee was delightful--that is, until she began to chew. And chew and chew and chew. Shoes, wallets, exotic flutes...

So. Something had to be done. My mother and sister left for work one day, so it was just my dad and me. And Coffee. Without explanation, Dad loaded Coffee and me up into the little blue Mazda. I now realize she must have done something really terrible, judging by the proceeding events. I giggled and laughed as Coffee licked my face and bounded back and forth behind me. We pulled in behind the Best Western on the edge of town, drove down into the thicket that borders the river, and came to a stop. Dad got out of the car, let Coffee out of the trunk, and pulled a shotgun from out of nowhere. In eager anticipation for something exciting, I pushed my face up against the window and peered out.

All I can really remember at this point is dad aiming at Coffee, pulling the trigger once, pulling the trigger twice, and Coffee's eye turning red as it filled up with blood. And then we drove home.

We arrived in the driveway just as my mom and sister were also getting home. I jumped out of the back seat and raced to my mom, chanting, "WE KILLED COFFEE! WE KILLED COFFEE!" in a sort of sick sing-song childish euphoria that I am still somewhat disturbed at. Mom told me to hush, and then took me inside. And that was the end of that--until about 10 years later, at the age of about 16, I recalled the details of this story and spent an agonizing night crying over the misfortune of Coffee, and my role as accomplice to the Doggy Murderer. Seriously. But I'm over it now. Although I'm still somewhat creeped out at myself for being so happy. I would like to have done a psychological analysis of Paloma, age 6.
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One more story:
At about the same age, I was again home alone with my dad. I was baking and cooking delectable treats on my Playschool Stove when I thought, "Hey! Wouldn't it be fun to actually light a fire in this stove?" So I rummaged through some junk drawers, found a Chesapeake Bay decorative candle, and took it to my dad, requesting that he light it. I don't really know why he lit it; maybe he was really tired or something, but he did (My dad is really not as careless and insensitive as these stories imply. All these stories just happen to catch him at these times).

I joyously took the candle back to my room, stuck it in the stove, shut the door, got bored, and left. I rejoined my dad in the living room and sat on his lap while we watched TV. Minutes later, we were interrupted by a loud BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

So of course, dad threw me out of his lap, jumped out of his chair, and ran to my room where my Playschool Stove had completely caught on fire. I'm not really sure how he put the fire out, but he did. There was a nice big section of the wall that was somewhat charred, and to top it all off, the fire burned a patch of hair off the head of my sister's teddy bear. She's still bitter.
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Also--I was such a strange child that my sister used to pin me to the ground and try to cast the demons out of me. I was just having a grand old time, but I probably would have, too, if I were her. One doesn't quite know how to react to a child who speaks like PeeWee Herman/Face Jr. and runs around the house climbing walls and putting on one-man re-enactments from Disney death scenes.
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On the same lighthearted note, Joanna told me some hilarious pet stories last night that must be shared with the world:

1. The Paralyzed Gerbil--This gerbil was paralyzed on one side of the body, so it just ran around in circles. That's the only way it could get anywhere. Just going round and round in circles until it got there...
2. Dissected Mice--Jo's mother used to make her and her brother catch mice in mousetraps and dissect the little critters (snapped necks and all) on the kitchen counter as science projects. Her mom's a vet.
3. Runaway Hamsters--When the family was out of town, a neighbor was charged with caring for the hamsters. Unfortunately, they escaped in Jo's room, so the guy just shut the door and would occasionally sprinkle food in random places throughout the room during the whole week. The family came home to chewed cables and cracked-open sunflower seeds scattered about.
4. Kermit/Lazarus and the Rubbermaids--Joanna had a little water frog that she named Kermit. One day, Kermit disappeared. Joanna cleaned the entire aquarium and put everything back in. A few months later, Kermit reappeared, so they renamed him Lazarus. Then Lazarus disappeared again. Another few months later, Lazarus' decayed body was found among a stack of rubbermaid bins. Guess he wasn't so lucky after all.
5. The Peeing Square--Jo's dogs have a specific square in the backyard that they are allowed to pee in.
6. The Shooting on Teen Challenge Campus--Jo's father apparently hates squirrels. One day, on the campus of Teen Challenge, he saw a terrible little squirrel outside doing something destructive, so he took out his shotgun and proceeded to shoot the little thing through the window. It didn't die. Just left a trail of blood throughout the campus...
7. Tumor Hamster--This hamster obviously had a tumor. Jo's mother dissected the tumor in its throat to make sure that was the cause of death. Apparently it was white and bloody.
8. The Fertilized Gerbil Garden--With a tiny shovel in hand, Jo was instructed to go and bury her dead hamsters and gerbils in the garden, so as to fertilize the crop. Must have made for some tasty potatoes.

Thoughts About Unicorns

People in church are always talking about how excited they are to meet Jesus, or how they're "ready to be with the Lord." They make it sound as if Jesus is going to meet us at the heavenly gates riding a unicorn and say, "Hey thought you'd never make it! You're just in time for the 3-winged race. Those seraphim are really going to crush the cherubim into the dust." Then we will ride with Jesus across a meadow made of cotton candy clouds while giant chocolate doves fly overhead.

When they say this, I always nod agreeingly, pretending that I feel the same way. Truth is, I am terrified at the thought of meeting Jesus.

Sorry if that sounds un-Christian-like of me, but it's the truth. Don't get me wrong--it's not so much the thought of dying or death that gets me--I just cannot understand how somebody would not cower in fear at the thought of meeting the creator of the universe face-to-face. Now I know how Moses felt when the Bible said he hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. I think I would have peed my pants. Or fainted. Or maybe died. At the very least, someone would have had to come up the mountain to find me writhing in a fetal position. It says that after Moses came down with the stone tablets, people were afraid to even look at his face because it was so radiant from seeing just the backside of the glory of God. Wow. Does that not blow your mind?

Even in Isaiah's vision, he pretty much freaks out at the realization of God's holiness and his own unholiness. I would, too.  I say I long for heaven, but it is like an expectant and hopeful terror. And I wonder why this scares me so much. I think there's something inside us all that thinks, "When God finally sees this awful piece of scum, he's going to give us one look, and with a look of disgust, turn back around." But as much as I say that thought is ridiculous, I still think it. We say we believe we are made new and worthy to be called saints, but I think in reality we don't believe that at all.

It's not like God doesn't already see our depravity, our cowardice, our shame, or our failures. In fact, he knows them better than we do. And that's a scary thought. But it's also a breathtakingly beautiful thought. The thought that even though he has plucked around in the mire and sludge of our lives, he will still be waiting expectantly for us in heaven with the greatest love we have never experienced on earth. It scares me how good God is.

But I have a feeling when I get to heaven, all that fear will be gone. I have a feeling that when that time comes, I won't have time nor capacity to fear because I will be filled with an awe I can't even imagine.

Take That, Hurricane

I really hate nature sometimes. I get mad when, on the one day I choose to wear a skirt, the wind decides to pick up and forces me to walk like a wingless penguin to and from class. I imagine the wind guffawing up in the sky, blowing an extra little breath of 40 mph horror just to make me flinch a little. I get mad when I sit in the park on a beautiful day, and a bee decides it wants to buzz around my face and chase me until I start whimpering and running in circles. I get mad when I wake up for breakfast and find that a battalion of ants has assaulted my oatmeal stash. It makes me want to tie up each individual and unrepentant ant to a stove with duct tape as I lecture them about the importance of respecting other people’s property. I get mad at humidity when I am having a really good hair day. I get mad at lightning for making me have to cut my runs short, but I also easily forgive lightning, simply because it is beautiful. I get mad at the ungrateful turtle for biting my finger when I try to feed it lettuce, and I get mad at the squirrel for being deceptive and pretending it is dead when it is not and wasting my sympathy. I get mad at sharks for existing, and I get mad at sand for getting in my shorts. I get mad at my onion garden for not growing and I get mad at the rock I fell off at Grand Mesa that cut my leg open. 

Sometimes, I want to punch nature in the face.

Sometimes, nature makes me so mad that I want to stand on a majestic-looking platform, somewhat resembling Pride Rock from the Lion King, and scream at a tornado, “Come get me, you ninny!” at the top of my lungs. I want to duke it out with a tornado, to teach it who’s boss and make it never come back and destroy things. I’m not quite sure how I’d fight the tornado, but I imagine it would involve pacing around a field like boxers, the use of a lasso, and a force field. I can see it in the headlines now, “F4 Funnel vs. 3^rd Year English Major.” Well, it sounds a lot less cool when it’s written down.

I want to take the tall weeds that slap me in the face when I’m on a hike and interrogate them with the use of fire and a scythe. In reality, all I can do is hurl the weeds across the forest, and sadly watch as they flutter through the air for four extremely slow seconds and land peacefully by my feet.

I want to take my grandma’s dog, Fritz, who ate my guinea pigs when I was three, and launch him from a catapult and into the cow pond on her farm. Like a bad child, I want to give nature a good spanking for being cruel and unfair.

I get mad at the lake with a muddy bottom that made me fall and skin my toes, and feel a desire to plunge a knife into the murky waters over and over and over. I want to fight an oak tree with a bo staff, and I want to torture a hailstorm by reading it low-quality poetry.  But something tells me that lake would not really care. And neither would the tree or the hailstorm.

Something tells me that nature would not really care at all if tried to get even. And so, it comes to perspective. Sometimes nature teaches us deep things, and sometimes it teaches us common sense things. This is one of those common sense things.

Regardless of what we think of nature, it’s going to keep doing what it does, has always done. It kind of reminds me of forgiveness. The person who hurt you probably doesn’t care whether you like them or not. They don’t care if you still have murderous fantasies or if you put away those hard feelings a long time ago. They probably don’t even think about you at all. And it’s hard to imagine, because like that handful of weeds, you want to hurl them somewhere far away and hurt them like they hurt you. But the only person you’re going to hurt is you, because all you can think about is a way to duct tape that fire ant, or blow up the wind into a million pieces. And eventually, you start to miss the good things, like tiny snails being born by the hundreds, like a beautiful rosy and gold autumn-colored day, like a little family of owls in the tree. Trying to hurt a person by hating them in your heart is like trying to catch a tornado with a lasso. It goes nowhere, and ends in your own defeat.

Maybe I’m overthinking, or maybe I’m trying to learn something that isn’t intended to be learned. Maybe all this talk of nature has no relevance to anybody but me, but if that’s the case, I feel like nature has bestowed a special gift on me, complete with sharks and bloody cuts.

Proving Grounds

These are the proving grounds
Where we lay down our pride, our haste, our shame.
We dropped them one by one as we walked through the tunnel
Of pale, tempered light until it ricocheted
Into brilliant sun,
Into this arena with no gates, no beasts,
No mockers from the stands.

The formulaic assembly with whom you entered dissipate
And it is you, just you
Because the hands that held you, held each other
Have found their callings;
They know they are as fossils not yet aged to their future glory
And you can rest assured that those who didn't make it
Will reach their summits someday.

You were torn to pieces to arrive
Your slivered veins still reflect vermilion in the light
You were beaten, whipped, and shackled,
Betrayal became expected and you found no refuge from pain
But you find that your lips still bless the Giver And The Taker
For that mercy so severe, so unwanted
That brought you here

Brought you to the place
Where only the divine can animate the dead
Where freedom will not be found in love or success
But rather in truth.
And the heavy yoke you carried so long
Will be yours no longer.
Yes, these are the grounds where you need not prove anything at all.

Rebirth

I liken it to a void--
Void of feeling, void of thought, void of darkness itself,
Empty. Nothing.

And I liken it to a quiet voice
Not a flash of light, not a thunderous voice from the sky
But just the same, scales on my eyes,
A quiet voice.

And again I liken it to a burning in my lungs
A fire raging, underwater
I see a thing called pride and I can't release
I see an unforgiving heart and it grips my chest tighter
I hear a voice that says, "I can do it on my own."
Can't breathe. Can't breathe. Can't breathe.
I see it, glorious, for just an instant
And my grip loosens
That glorious hand reaches for mine and suddenly I am out
Gasping, coughing, wheezing,

Breathing
                                                                                                                                                                                               
I liken it to a golden field
That shimmers in sunsets like tinfoil
And blows across like waves of the ocean
Sometimes storms come, but without the rain
This field would not be so fruitful for harvest-time.
Sometimes, the soil must be turned,
Or the earth given a rest so that new things can grow
But always, always, it returns what was put into it
Hundredfold.

I do not liken it to; it is Rebirth.

Fears (Reprise)

Confession:
If John Keats was so bold
Then let my humble words be an echo to his
When I speak for humanity in agreement
Of this sly dragon who creeps behind us
Stalks us slowly, then stops
Rubs its head up to ours
And purrs softly into our ears

We wince almost imperceptibly
Because by now we know this hunter
Who hastens at our heels but never strikes
It would be better if he did finally strike
But anticipation is its greatest weapon
And our worst vice

"When I have fears that I may cease to be"
That's not the real sentiment here, is it really? Get to the root.
Let my words be burned up
Let me fly to the other world tomorrow
And my assurance will not waver there
Rather, our fears lie in the crevices
They are rutted deep into the tiny cracks under our fingernails
It's the little monsters we fear.

I look to the ones I love
And the bonds of attachment twinge and tighten
We never admit it, but the feeling remains
I fear the pain that comes with love, including me and them,
That death, separation, or loss of affection
Will one day come, inevitable as truth finding a lie

I fear my faith, I fear it is a speck of dust
And a mustard seed is too lofty of a hope
For these faithless eyes that depend so on grace and without it,
Cannot find footing of their own
I fear not the God who does not hear my prayers
But I fear the God who listens and remains silent
For anger is bearable, harsh words are bearable
But silence is as sweet as the blast of a gun to the ear

I have fears that the love and forgiveness I so boldly profess
Misrepresent so cruelly the giver of those gifts
My works, hard as I may try
Will not withstand the flames on that blessed day
And will be burned up like straw
I search, I seek, I claw the ground for grace

Most of all, I fear these confessions
Though I have heard the idea a thousand times renounced
I fear that the God who called me once to restoration
Will see now the extent of my follies and reject this traitor of the faith
But to give hold to such ideas is to give a greater offense
To the one who through and by and for all things are made and sustained
For if all else I fear of my wickedness, the one thing in which I must believe
Is that there is one stronger than that wickedness to overcome

I have fears, and the dragon stalks me still
He may run into my path, make me stumble
But I don't fear he will sink his teeth into me
Most of us have little monsters, Mr. Keats, he had demon behemoths
But I don't think that fact really matters...
The dragon found him, but not us.

It doesn't have to.

Literacy in Labels?

The back of the Kashi cereal box and I have become very intimate. I will give you calories per serving, the top five ingredients, and their peppy slogan, "7 Whole Grains on a Mission!" If I am spending the weekend at your house, be aware that I am picking up your shampoo bottles in the shower and comparing the chemicals in each to one another. Yes, I do read the entire menu even if I already know what I want, and I turn closed captioning on the TV even though I have no trouble hearing. During church, I can't help but notice if there is a misplaced apostrophe on one of the powerpoint slides. I love reading things forwards and backwards--especially backwards because once in a while I get a funny word, like "agabatur" from "rutabaga," or "noelopan" from "napoleon."

I like reading nametags because then I can picture a tiny drawing made from the letters to help me remember the name. For example, the Sue I met this summer at the church picnic had those two really annoying kids who kept pushing each other down the slide, and I imagine them, just so, riding down Sue's little curved S.

On road trips, I get car sick if I read novels. So, I read highway mile signs, billboards, "For weather information, tune your radio to ------" signs, "You have just entered ------" signs, construction signs, warnings, and car makes and models.

Beware if you grocery shop with me because I will read every brand and sometimes just pick a product based on how poetically or cleverly the words mesh. I hate sitting in college classrooms because there are no sappy inspirational posters for my eyes to revert to when the lecture gets boring. So instead, I read the backs of people's shirts and I try to spell every person in the class's name backwards in my head, starting in one corner and ending in the other.

But I hate reading long and boring textbooks. I don't like strings of unnecessary words in a paragraph and I don't love every novel I read. Gasp. And it's not like I find great insight in reading Drivers' Ed manuals, but I didn't really realize what a fancy I had for reading things in everyday life until I was prompted to write this blog. So this makes me wonder--are people who only read labels, signs, and the backs of movie boxes considered "uneducated" because they haven't read the entire Paradise Lost? Maybe, by some people. But they probably have a lot more common sense than people who can only define what a heroic couplet is and can't operate a toaster. Just saying.

A Farewell to Modesty

            Along with summer comes the insatiable hunger to have the “bronze glow,” to show off just how much more tan you can get than your friend without turning into a fire-roasted crustacean.

            So comes the day when I decide to conform to what everyone else’s pastime has become this season. Out of respect for the neighbors and for any passersby, I take the time to set up the tanning booth my father had attempted and failed to patent many years before. It works, for about a day, before tumbling to the earth in the middle of the windy night. Hoping not to repeat the incident, I set up a barricade of lawn furniture, mostly chairs, grills, trashcans, and a large sheet, for some privacy. Not so long after, a variety of garden insects begin to flock to the shaded region, from which I have no escape and eventually have to vault myself over our R2D2-shaped grill to flee a demon-possessed fire ant.

            At this point, my neighbor Cindy decides to come home for lunch from her job at Radio Shack. She lumbers out of her Buick and begins watering the roses that line the fence separating our yards. Seriously, Cindy? Watering plants at one o’clock in the afternoon? She takes her time making sure that every stem is fully hydrated and finally makes the long trek back up her steps.

            Ah sweet privacy! But not for long. Just as I am breathing a sigh of relief, there is simultaneous commotion coming from both the alleyway and the neighbors across the street. My head snaps both directions and I gather that, one, a band of hooligans is about to parade past the back of my house and two, my other neighbors have just come home and their children think it necessary to screech like wild banshees while chasing each other with giant sticks outside my driveway. I dive back into my batcave of gardening machinery and lawn tables.

            Then comes the third attempt. I hang a sheet from the clothesline and pin it to chairs on the ground, using the fence as the other wall. I finally feel assured that this method will be fail-proof. I enjoy myself, basking in the warm sunlight for those enjoyable 30 seconds before a small family of wasps decides to buzz around the foliage surrounding the fence, about 2 feet away from me. At first they don’t bother me too badly, but soon I find myself suspiciously opening one eye to watch them as they fly overhead. Visions of “My Girl” and Macaulay Culkin dying a horrible death near the wasps’ nest races through my mind.

            Persuaded that yes, I will be a shade darker by the end of the day, I scoot my chair away from the clothesline, away from the wasps, and a few feet further from the fence. I then clothespin a sheet to a trashcan and two lawn chairs, a variation of my earlier barricade. They only cover one side, but it is an improvement. A wasp buzzes over my face about 4 minutes in. By now, I wouldn’t have cared if a cheeseburger-sized grasshopper were tap dancing on my leg. I just don’t want to get stung. I glance at my tan line, hoping that I will be dark enough to go in now, but no! “Curse this worthless Mexican blood!” I think, “What’s the point if I can’t even tan like we’re supposed to?”

Still, I will not be dissuaded. I think back to my church camp speakers and Shannon Etheridge-reading years regarding modesty and whatnot and a small twinge of guilt stirs my soul…and lasts for about two seconds. I am fuming and this is the last straw.

            I grab my clothes, throw them on the ground in a rebellious fit, then pick them back up again almost immediately as I recalled the tiny spiders that will jump on anything sitting on the grass. I resume my defiant attitude and grab my chair, thrust it in the middle of the lawn, and lie down, no barricades, no sheets, and definitely no grills. And I stay that way for a good 20 minutes before I have to go inside due to heart palpitations and overheating. So there. I have done it. Forget modesty. Forget respect. It’s too much work! I am victorious. I waltz inside, my ego soaring that I have done such a daring feat. I look in the mirror and look for my tan line, expecting a complete transformation.

            I have darkened about ¼ of a shade. 

What Stopped Me in My Tracks (Literally)

There was a chilly autumn stillness in the air the day I found my beloved childhood cat Michi—dead—on the front lawn. Michi, the one I’d stuffed into baby strollers when he was just a tyke. Michi, whom I’d spanked multiple times for scratching the wood siding in the house. Michi, the little kitten I’d owned and loved for eleven years. 

I recall that I was home alone, and walking from the kitchen to the dining room to put something away when, outside the window, I beheld a gray lumpy heap on the grass and froze. I dropped what I was doing and ran barefoot outside through the crunchy dead leaves and stopped abruptly when I reached the lifeless body of my cat. Is he dead? I thought. Sick? Afraid that I might contract some sort of contagious disease, or that he might spring up from his rest and bite me in a rabid frenzy, I gingerly poked him with a stick I found on the ground. No response…and he was unusually stiff. Still unsatisfied with what might be a potential autopsy, I slowly kneeled down, eyeing the unnatural way in which he was positioned. Somewhat assured that I would not be infected by a virus, I bent over and listened for a heartbeat. Nothing. It was then that I noticed just how sunken in his eyes were, and this confirmed the worst. So there, in front of Main Street as cars and semis zoomed past, I sat in my ragged sweats and t-shirt and petted Michi’s soft and shiny fur.

When my dad finally got home, I met him outside with a shaky voice to tell him the bad news. He simply walked inside, grabbed a trash bag and shovel, and started for the front yard as I followed. Dad wrapped the black trash bag around Michi’s body and lifted it up. We both paused to observe the curious pose he was in—the spitting image of Wile E. Coyote right before he falls off a cliff. Even the expression was similar. Strange.

Reverently (and by reverently I mean me carrying Michi with arms outstretched as far away from my body as possible while the garbage bag flapped in the breeze), we transported him to the backyard and stopped underneath our Blue Spruce. Dad began to dig away at the ground, but about six inches deep, we realized that the roots from the tree were growing too close to the surface and too clustered to make much progress. My dad stood back and leaned against the shovel, thinking. “Well,” he said finally, “This is the only spot I can think to bury him. I don’t want to dig another hole in the grass.” I looked down at the hole skeptically.

“We can try,” I said and shrugged. We then proceeded to lower Michi into his miniature grave, but his tail proved to be a real troublemaker. The problem was that his body was so stiff from the rigor mortis that the tail wouldn’t bend or budge from its pin-straight position. We twisted and pulled as much as we dared, but the tail was not going in. Dad finally let out a huff and picked the shovel up again. Soon, a little mountain of dirt sat atop Michi and the troublesome tail, concealing it from daylight forevermore. I lugged a big rock and dropped it on the pile of dirt, only to have the impact expose the tip of the tail again. It took us a few tries, but at last Michi, all of Michi, was buried under a substantial amount of dirt and soil.

“Do you want to say a few words?” Dad asked solemnly. I opened my mouth to begin a speech about Michi’s friendship, loyalty, etc. But as I did, I looked over at my dad and something happened when our eyes met that made me…giggle. Then dad started to chuckle, too. Pretty soon, we were in tears, happy tears, over the absurdity of the situation. Morbid as it was, it was too ridiculous to not laugh. When our dog Britan began sniffing and pawing at the grave, it made us laugh even harder to the point that our stomachs hurt.

             I would love to think that Michi would have wanted it that way, but in reality, he was just a cat and to say that he had dying wishes would be silly and somewhat idiotic. Of course, I loved my cat, but I am glad his death was something I can look back at and think about sadly, and maybe laugh a little bit about too.

So You Think You Can Survive My Biggest Loser's Apprentice?

            I just love reality TV. Maybe it’s the way Tyra reinforces a person’s vain self-image and bulimic tendencies that warms my heart. Or perhaps it is the anticipation of the deceit and inevitable drama of the upcoming Bachelor that brings me to tears.

            And the real question is: What will the Sea Shepherds' elaborate/useless vandalism project be this year? I have to admit, the acid and overturned rafts of season two was awe-inspiring, but the paintballs of season three were the real icing on the cake.

            Maybe I should start my own reality TV show. All it basically needs is a mildly annoying host, a weekly challenge, and a tearful occurrence every seven minutes. Oh, and ten randomly selected contestants who just happen to have polar opposite personalities and slightly neurotic dispositions.

            Then there are the extra tidbits that make the show all the more appealing. An evil eye here, a sabotaged plan there. I think my show will be called Project: So You Think You Can Survive my Biggest Loser’s Apprentice? Yeah, still working on a title.

            The plot is sketchy, but the setting is a deserted island. Here, ten up-and-coming fashion designers will be contending to lose the most weight. At the end of each week, the ones who have lost 5% body fat and can demonstrate the best dance moves will be given a red rose. As for the rest? You’re fired.

            The season finale is going to be a real shocker, so the details will be kept to the producers. I will say, however, that it involves a match of wits between Howie Mandel and a really smart fifth grader.

            I think this series has a lot of potential to instill positive family values in today’s TV-watchers. What reality show doesn’t? Gossip, betrayal, and discord are only scarcely prevalent.

            There has been much controversy over this matter. Many argue that it is teaching our young people to have lower morals and distorted worldviews. My rebuttal to this statement is that learning how to hunt ghosts or decorate cakes is obviously the more important issue.

            Reality TV can teach a person so much. In the very probable event that I am forced to lie in a bathtub of scorpions or make a dress out of newspaper, I am in luck. Fear Factor and Project Runway have taught me well.
            Someday, I hope everyone can take as much joy and knowledge from these shows as I have. Who wouldn't enjoy watching a loveable yet scantily clad 3-year-old prima donna parade on a pageant stage for parents living vicariously through her? What insight couldn't you get from people with strange addictions to eating household cleaners, toilet paper, and furniture stuffing? How could you not feel the love of a deluded polygamist family surround you as you grimace? For those who have not yet experienced this innovation of the 21st century, I guarantee wisdom to be gained in every episode. What more could a person want? All I can say is...the tribe has spoken.