Truth.

Reality TV has gone off the deep end over the last few years. Unfortunately for me, I’ve been able to witness it firsthand. My wife loves this slop. I don’t know why, and I’m not going to use crucial brain cells in order to discern the mysteries of my wife. She would probably laugh at me, and throw the remote control at my head.

Not only am I regaled with Immunity Challenges on Survivor, but I’m privy to the inner-workings of “Road Blocks” on The Amazing Race. These two alone haven’t been that big of a deal. However, when coupled with shows such as Paradise Hotel, American Idol, and other drivel, it gets hard to stomach.

Enter Moment of Truth.

Seriously, this show is the herald of the downfall of Western Civilization. Ok, not really, but it’s pretty bad. Beforehand, contestants are subjected to a polygraph test and given questions ranging from embarrassing to heart-wrenching. After you answer these questions, you must then answer them again in front of a national TV audience.

Did I mention your closest family and friends are sitting twenty feet from you?

The object is to answer truthfully, and win as much as $500,000. I don’t know if anyone will ever get there, especially after last night.

The contest was a lady was a hairdresser from New York. Her husband was there, her mother and father, as well as her sister and brother. Let me go ahead and preface the rest of this post by saying this: When there are problems in a marriage, both people are usually responsible for at least a minor part of the difficulty. This lady’s husband seemed like a nice guy, but I’m sure he’s far from perfect (aren’t we all?).

So the questions are fairly innocuous to start. I’m paraphrasing here:

“Have you ever told someone their hair looked good when it didn’t?”

“Have pretended to be asleep when your husband wanted to have sex?”

After awhile, though, it got serious.

“Have you kept secrets for your dad that your mom didn’t know about?”

“Have you ever taken off your ring when out so people would think you were single?”

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was the husband, my stomach would probably be in the fourth row of the audience. You know what’s coming next, don’t you? It gets worse.

“Were you still in love with your ex-boyfriend when you married your husband?”

To the skank’s credit, she answered “Yes” to all of these so far. By now she had won $25,000, but she just had to push it.

Since Reality TV is all about “pushing the envelope,” they really drive the knife in next. They bring out the “ex-boyfriend” from the previous question to ask the next question. Now, I’m pretty redneck when it comes to stuff like this. As soon as I saw the piece of garbage, I probably would’ve gotten up and tried to tickle his brain. To the husband’s credit though, he did not-which led the ex-BF to ask this question:

“If I asked you to leave your husband and be with me, would you?”

Man. That’s hardcore. The skank’s sister didn’t want to hear the answer, so she used the “buzzer” to get rid of that question. It made me laugh, because the “alternate question” was:

“Do you think I should be the person you married on your wedding day?”

And the road whore answered “yes.”

I would’ve just left if I was the husband. The poor guy sat there, with his head in his hands, listening to his wife say she’d rather be with someone else. Well, that question netted her $100,000. That’s a lot of change. By now all of the emotion was drained from her husband. But she kept freakin’ going. The next question:

“Since you’ve been married, have you had sexual relations with someone other than your husband?”

She answered “yes.”

Poor bastard.

In a moment of ultimate irony, the next question was “Do you think you are a good person?” To which she said “yes.”

Too bad she didn’t answer truthfully, and the polygraph said she was lying.

Not only did she lose $100,000, but she probably lost her husband, caused hard feelings between her mother and father, and now looks like a degenerate piece of white trash. It’d be easy to simply blame the networks and compare this type of “entertainment” with gladiators during the heady days of the Roman Empire. One hundred large is a lot of money, but think of everything you have to sell to get that.

Your dignity.
Your marriage.
Your family.

Networks don’t force people to come on these shows and trade self-respect for money the IRS is salivating over. This is the fault of people who think the quick and easy way to money will solve everything. It sure didn’t solve anything in this case, did it? There are some things you just can’t put a price on, and that’s the only Truth I need.