I’M WATCHING my second season of the reality television series The Bachelor with my daughter, but according to my mother-in-law and other children, this doesn’t make me a seasoned reality voyeur. Apparently, this takes “years of training” where you have to watch a variety of programs – like Judge Judy, Jersey Shore, and Survivor – in order to master the ironic consumption of their dramas.
My husband shakes his head at us as he strolls through, his face screwed up as if to say, “WHAT are you watching?” In the past when my kids were little and I’d overhear some Survivor drama playing out, this is likely what my face said as well.
I’d ask my kids, “Don’t you have a book to read?”
Now, every week, my daughter and I are giddy with anticipation for each new episode. We get her fiance to make us popcorn and we snuggle next to each other on the couch with our pillows and blankets.
We spend the next couple of hours hooting with delight as the rotation of crying and backstabbing begins. We criticise how the show depicts women and its lack of diversity while, at the same time, acknowledging the contestants are there by consent and that it’s fun to watch. It takes a handful of episodes to determine who our favorite participants are and then we root for these folks as the story plays out over the season. There is a lot of commentary.
“Let’s count how many times the contestants say, ‘How ARE you?’”
“Can you believe she is STILL crying over being called a ‘champagne stealer?’”
“Oh look! Someone’s actually eating something!”
If your favorite challenger doesn’t land the star of the show, chances are good you will see them again on Bachelor in Paradise a few months later. This show is even more ridiculous as male and female rejects from past seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette “show up to hook up” and find true love.
This is where Hannah G found herself after being dismissed by Bachelor Colton last season. It was while watching this gem that we observed smooth Blake (one of many past contestants circulating in Bachelor Nation) asking Hannah G what her favorite food was. Her answer: charcuterie board. His reply? Mine too!
Charcuterie board?
“Charcuterie board” is not a food. According to Wikipedia, “charcuterie” is a “branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products … originally intended as a way to preserve meat before the advent of refrigeration.” A “board of charcuterie” would mean a platter of fancy bacon, ham, sausage, pâté, etc.
I’m pretty sure Hannah G meant that she likes fancy meat and cheese, served with nice bread or crackers, and possibly a few olives, nuts, or dried fruit, all arranged on a tray. Which, as a whole, could be considered a favorite meal.
When I was Hannah G’s age, these were also some of my favorite foods, which I often made into a meal. I would slice unfancy cheese, because fancy cheese wasn’t invented then, and arrange it with apple wedges and crackers on a plate. If someone were to ask me what my favorite meal was, I might say, “cheese and crackers,” but if someone asked me what my favorite food was, I wouldn’t say “cheese plate” I would say “a cheese plate,” making full use of the article “a.”
Besides having scintillating conversation, Hannah G and the other contestants on The Bachelor get to go on group dates. While on them, they are challenged to do all sorts of crazy things to see who will win the rose, meaning safety for that week of eliminations. In Season 20, they swam with pigs. So far, group dates haven’t featured chickens. I’m thinking of writing to the producers to suggest it.
Chickens are very entertaining. This time of year, our chickens get a little bored because they hate snow. They can be enticed to go outside if we have an unusual 40-degree day, but only if I scatter hay on top of the drifts for them. Otherwise, it’s business as usual for the girls inside the coop – eating, scratching, laying, and cackling. In the winter, I let them use the attached storage shed as their play area to lessen their boredom.
However, this privilege has inadvertently led to the creation of other problems. Apparently, there are breathtaking adventures happening in the shed.
The other day, I was feeding the chickens and noticed the cover to their food canister needed cleaning. The lid was inverted and resting on an empty bin. I took the cover outside, wiped it off in the snow, and was about to put it back in place when I noticed Jessica Lange (the chicken, not the actress) in the bottom of the barrel. I thought she must have hopped in there while I was cleaning the lid, but when I tipped the bin over to let her out, there was an egg underneath, indicating she had been trapped for awhile.
Shaking my head I ask the group, “What are you guys doing when I’m not around? How do you get stuck inside a bin without the lid falling off?”
Here’s where I really would like to be a reality voyeur so I can see what my chickens are up to. If The Bachelor group date idea doesn’t work out, I imagine a new television series called Foul Fowl. Episode one will feature Pookie Olive, one of the five-year-olds, chasing poor Jessica Lange, bottom of the pecking order, out of the coop and into the storage area.
“That’s MY scratch, you food-stealer!”
Jessica Lange, looking for safety, hops up onto the feed bin, wobbles about on the unstable lid and then topples into the darkness below. The cover threatens to crash to the ground, but then settles into place. Pookie Olive races to the metal bin and starts furiously pecking on it, causing Jessica Lange to squawk in terror as the sound reverberates all around her.
Stella, the eleven-and-a-half year old matriarch, follows behind, trying to create a diversion.
“Pookie O, how ARE you? What’s your favorite meal?”
This scenario is not at all dissimilar to group dates on The Bachelor.
Episode two might involve mice. Despite safely storing livestock feed outside, sunflower seeds fall to the ground under bird feeders and layer-crumbles beneath chicken feeders. Mice find this to be an excellent arrangement. When a mouse gets inside the coop, our chickens become so fascinated watching it they forget to eat. To prevent them from starving, and the mice from migrating from coop to house, I have become a good trapper.
I like the new traps, where you just click the plate into place. I use Velveeta for the bait. This system is so effective, I once caught two mice in one trap! In the past, when I used the old-fashioned spring-loaded bar trap, a sort of “charcuterie board for mice,” they sometimes got away after eating all the cheese.
There are plenty of other chicken-related mysteries ripe for a Bachelor Nation group competition or reality show sequel. Perhaps, given my “years of training,” I should go bigger and audition my own voyeur television series, called Life in the Henhouse, where boards are not meals, fowl language is common, cheese theft is real, and anyone’s safety can hang in the balance.
Or, should it be called Life in Henhouse? I better ask Hannah G.
Last Letters /No Regrets is a multi-faceted business devoted to words, their purpose, and application. Heather Mlsna is a professional writer and can be reached at lastlettersmqt@gmail.com or (906) 250-5769. She offers Personal Legacy writing workshops at Peter White Library on the second Monday of every month, from 6-8 pm. More at www.lastlettersnoregrets.com. © 2020, Heather Mlsna