Battle of the Network Starz

Have you ever met anyone who has been on a reality show? Up until last night, I would have had to answer No to this question.

But last night my sister's contractor, the guy who re-did her kitchen and bathroom, was a contestant on a show on Discovery where people race their old jalopy bazoos around an obstacle course. The winner gets a refinishing job on his bazoo while the losers get their cars impaled on a big thing called the "Spike of Shame" (which has nothing to do with Sean Connery's wang, which I still have not seen a full frontal picture of...but I digress).  I met this contractor last summer and if ever there was a contractor who deserved his own reality show, it is him. He is a "character" of epic proportions. Mike Holmes is a dullard compared to this fellow. No wonder his wife sent his name in to audition for TV. Some people were born to be on TV. He didn't win, though, and his beloved van was impaled on the Spike of Shame.

This is the second person my sister knows to appear on a reality show in the past year. Earlier, the daughter of a colleague was in a episode of a program where young women who have poor money sense (and generally no common sense) get read the riot act and put on a budget by the loud-mouthed Gail V.O., she of the undeterminable accent. (Actually, it's Jamaican, but you never expect to hear a Jamaican accent from a white person, do you? Admit it, you don't.) That young woman got $5000 for her public humiliation. Is that a fair bargain? I dunno. But in my mind, anyone who belongs to an on-line shoe club and gets new shoes mailed to her on a regular basis, deserves public humiliation.

My sister's new career: Hanger on to the D listers.