Sign me up for Wife Swap so I can slap that creeper around! Did you see that?! How do they find this segment of society? Are there more of them? Is it catching? Can we immunize?
This week's episode featured (probably the first time ever) a perfectly normal American family vs some psycho-licious weirdos who live on a pseudo "farm" and worship the "natural" life as they see it. Upper-most on their list of ritualized devotions is the practice of eating raw meat. Not smoked, not pickled, not sushi ~ just do-it-yerrownself-home-butchered-quivering raw meat. Even chicken.
For special occasions they bring out jars of putrid, expired raw meat and gobble it up with lip-smacking satisfaction. They don't believe in bathing daily or brushing their teeth. Their house was certifiably and utterly filthy. The four of them had emotions about as stable as sweaty bottles of nitroglycerine.
The visiting wife took them to a restaurant for dinner so they could experience normal food. Within hours the 2 weenie teenage kids were moaning about how the strange food had made them sick. The camera focuses on the dad virtually collapsing into a fetal position in the bathroom, sobbing uncontrollably because his children were suffering. He accused the stunned guest wife of trying to poison them all.
On the opposing home front, dead-raw-meat-raw-egg-sucking-green-juice-drinking-swapping wife assaulted the host family non-stop. She was scary; long, ratty hair, baggy sweats and wrinkled super-sized t-shirts and a stream of outrageously aggressive demands that her lifestyle was the best thing since soap (er - not that) since carpet-dusting your house with manure. This was all fun and frivolity until we were treated to a close-up glimpse of her mouth. Just a peek. I came out of my seat.
(Remember Princess Buttercup, presented to the common folk - berated by the old hag? "Boo! Filth! Queen of Putrescence! Rubbish! Filth! Slime! Muck...!")
Can you say "Gingivitis"? "Trench Mouth"? "Anug?" Acute Necrotic Ulcerating Gingivitis?
What an idiot. Some of these people are so crazy, and their behavior so offensive to common sense, you wonder if they are just making it all up for the momentary notoriety. Here was proof of at least one fact: they really do abhor first world hygiene.
Now - if I had been the wife, I would avoid the pit-falls of previous contestants; the futile, constant clash to usurp the host family's cherished ways in favor of your own righteousness. In this particular instance, my path would have been clear. Handing the kids a mirror, I would have chosen the power of illustration over argument.
First, I would use a toothpick to scrape off a bit of the active, seething plaque colony on their teeth as exhibit number 1. Second, I would ask them to drink some punch (or organic Kool-aid) - and then have them look in the mirror again at the expansive wasteland of brightly stained and aglutinative bacteria. There needn't be many words at a time like that. Just a little thoughtful observation. Next (apologizing sweetly for the hanky I am obliged to hold demurely over my nose and mouth), I might ask them which they prefer; chewing their tetched meat with healthy, organic teeth? Or blending it up in a blender?
Will Shatner move over. I am a negotiating genius.
