Wife Swap – Freaks and weirdos

Around CliqueClack, you just never know what might come about.

So, when Wife Swap sat there waiting to be taken out of the basket for review, I was willing, ready and able to venture into unknown territory.  I think a number of my colleagues were in on the joke … I was not.

Suffice to say it’s taken me several days to come up with something that resembles a post about this show. Talk about your convoluted mound of entanglement.

We’re talking about a show of just plain weirdness here.  We’re talkin’ freaks. Freaks and weirdos.  In abundance.

Take for instance our key players in this season premiere episode:

• Ro Drago, a perpetual mother to three kids (her real children) and 14 plastic babies (reborn babies) who can “breathe,” have “heartbeats,” are rooted with real hair … and are ugly as all get-out. They’re downright creepy, matter’n fact. Ro spends more time with her reborn kids than her own flesh and blood children.
• There’s Ro’s husband, Jay, who is a walking floor mat. Oh … he’s good at keeping the house in order, but lay down any kind of law or household rules? That’s a language he doesn’t speak. To the detriment of their 19-year-old, pitiful excuse of a beyond lazy son, I might add.
• Or, how about Dave Cameron, father to three boys who can’t bring himself to even give his kids a hug and a kiss goodnight, as it’s something so foreign to him he can’t fathom it. After all, he never received any affection from his father — why should he foist any on his own progeny?
• There’s Dave’s wife, Teresa, whose dream it is to run a coffee house. And Dave is bound and determined to keep that sinking ship of a business afloat no matter the money pit it’s become.

So, given the above, you’ll understand when I say we don’t even have to delve into the back stories of the kids residing in either of these families’ homes on this episode (not that Wife Swap offered up much about them anyway.) The parents have created atmospheres which make your head shake in amazement with their strange and goofy outlook on “the way things should be,” so better left unsaid where the kids are concerned.

Yes … here we have the freaks and the weirdos … the train wreck stories Wife Swap offers up for its audience to gawk at and drop their jaws over. It’s not like it’s some game show that humiliates you. It’s not a feel-good story of the week to help you keep the faith in your fellow man. This program simply offers up a side show act, perfect fodder for someone to pull over to the side of the road and stare at. That’s all we’re talking about here.

There was nothing redeeming about this episode. The Dragos and The Camerons are set in their ways. Their ways are “right.” Their ways aren’t about to change. Cross them and they will snipe back at you. Don’t interfere. A husband tries to reason with his wife and she will walk out of a conversation on him as Ro did to Jay in the end.  Introduce the concept of childhood into the equation and it’s given to a $5,000 doll, not to a kid who has the wherewithal to know his parent is bonkers.  Tell someone (Dave) their business is going to hell in a hand basket, witness a call from the local electric company stating $600.00 is owed in arrears and still the response is “the dream will not die until my wife (Teresa) says it’s over.”

Wow.  Where do you go with something like this?  This is real life to some folks like The Dragos and The Camerons – sad and demented, but real.

You know that unknown territory I was willing to visit? Well, I’m glad I did. But I won’t be going back. Once was quite enough.

Truth, indeed, is vastly stranger than fiction. *shudder*

Clacked by Michael Noble
on Apr 06, 2010 @ 09:00 EST5EDT