A giant step backwards for Barbie.

"He's here!"  "We're here!"  "I feel so nervous!"  "That limo was fine!"

I admit it.  I've watch one season of it.  Now I'm starting another.  What in me wants to waste my time on this stuff?

Juan Pablo...The Bachelor.  Yep.  I watched the first episode while trying to figure out who will be in and who will be out.

I wonder if we women secretly (or openly) still believe in fairy tales.  I mean these ladies obviously do believe them.  They are gorgeous.  The clothes they wear are amazing.  They have real jobs.  And they all want to fall in love with the same guy.  And he wants to marry one of them.  Right?  Um yeah, no - I don't think so.

Even back in the day (as in high school) 27 women wouldn't dress up at the same time for one guy, parade around, and wait for an invitation from him to come for a little chat.  50 or more of us may have thought he was amazing. But most of us suffered our anxieties alone (well, maybe with two or three friends).

I'm sure I exhibit all the envies that a school girl feels, as I watch in my pajamas and slippers. But these aren't school girls!  These are grown women!

My one and only Barbie..still in the cedar chest.

Maybe this show is the fake remake of the Miss America contest in the form of a TV series.  More drama than the Miss Am contestants have, about the same hair (usually long) and makeup (beautifully done).  They have loads of clothes.

The only talent they have in this sitcom is trying to hustle the guy toward a corner of a beach or room, and at the same time shove the other girls out of The Bachelor's way.  No more walking the runway here...it is real action: jumping off cliffs, boats, into snow, sleet, and taking helicopter rides to isolated lands and islands, not to mention the meltdowns of the contestants: the screaming and fighting and swearing.  And it looks like (in a preview) somebody has crashed on a bathroom floor in a fit.

Maybe there is something else here for these ladies.  This could be their five minutes of fame (seems longer when put into numerous weeks of dating and advertising).  Somebody may discover them!

In the long run, what are we teaching our kids, our daughters and sons?  That these TV show are real life? They call them reality shows. There is nothing real about them. They are unreal.

What about the pj's and scuffy hair, no make-up, getting up for work, and dealing with dirty diapers.  At least some high schools have a real reality class in which they give a play doll who cries, and needs to be fed, and changed, to high school students.  They have to tend to it day and night for a few days...in their reality check of real life.

While this game continues, and it is a game for the masses of viewers to play vicariously, I hope the insanity will cease and the logic will kick in.  Everybody but one will eventually receive the full disaster of getting kicked off the show.  Emotions are wracked.  Hopefully it will not be the end of their world.  End?  No, not really...because they have more to do in the 'off-season' with follow up TV interviews and shows.

The good news is that the rose Juan Pablo gave on the first show...was to the only woman who wasn't completely enamored by him at the first meeting.  Maybe it is a game.  Maybe not.  There is something quite frightening about Hollywood and it takes some clear sense to know what is real and what is not.

Now that I think about it, I'm going back to the Food Network channel.  Less drama, more fun, as I pull out my iron and ironing board and press my clothes while watching. At least I can learn some practical skills...like how to feed myself and my friends.  Iron(ing) Chef...here I come, in my fantasy world.

Live richly, marilyn