I spuddle.

OK, first of all, I’d like to start off with a big huge fat “I TOLD YOU SO.”  There is no font large enough for the way that I am actually shouting that from the couch, so I won’t bother to change it, also because I don’t know how.

Now I’m doing the “I told you so” dance around the living room, except not really because how could I type and dance at the same time?   That would be a real talent that certainly I WISH that I had.   Think of all the books I could get written!  We do a lot of dancing in this family, I’m not even kidding about that.   I never danced until I had kids and now it’s ALL DANCING ALL THE TIME.   (And singing.)  (It’s like a freaking Disney movie around here.)

Mostly The Birdy runs up to me and says “Will you marry me?” which she believes has the same meaning as “Would you like to dance?”  And then we dance while she screams “HAPPILY EVER AFTER! HAPPILY EVER AFTER!”   And yes, she’s 2, so this is probably somewhat normal, or is it?   Because seriously I’m beginning to get scared that she’s going to one day see a commercial (or a “mamercial” as she calls them, SO CUTE, right?  I KNOW!) for The Bachelor/Bachelorette and she’s going to think it’s a GOOD IDEA which it is NOT.    Fairy tales are ruining our children’s futures!  Discuss.

Thank goodness she’ll be able to refer back to this blog which will live on in cyberspace forever and know that MUMMY SAYS FOR GOD’S SAKE DO NOT DO IT.   I’m not kidding.   I mean, let’s assume I’ll still be here to tell her “NO” in person, but maybe I’m not here, and if that is the case then seriously, Birdy, do NOT DO IT.   You will never, ever get your dignity back.   You can’t.   It gets sloughed off like hairs by a laser and those hairs do not grow back.   EVER.

Obviously Tenley and Vienna’s parents offered no such advice because look, here we are back on St. Lucia.   This is the part of the blog where I remind you once again that I WENT TO ST. LUCIA ONCE.    And!   AND!   The place where we stayed — Jalousie — was actually featured on this episode of The Bachelor so instead of actually paying attention to the endless drivel that was being spouted in such a way that it seemed like Mt. Cliche had erupted all over the TV, I was shouting, “THAT’S OUR ROOM!  THE SAME ROOM!  OMG!   LOOK!  IT’S OUR BEACH!   LOOK!  LOOK!   LOOK!  THAT’S WHERE WE DRANK ALL THAT RUM!  THAT’S WHERE I ATE AN OMELETTE MADE WITH A POUND OF BRIE!   THAT’S WHERE I PEED IN THE WATER AND THAT BARRACUDA CHASED ME!”   Because those are  just part of the tapestry of happy memories we wove at Jalousie which now have been polluted by the ridicularity of this TV show.   I’m just saying.   WE HAVE TO GO BACK AGAIN TO RIGHT THIS WRONG.

Did I mention that we went there?  And Tenley was staying in a room just like ours, albeit with nicer furniture?   Did I?  Did I?   Here is a photo, in case you do not believe me, and indeed why would you, because I make stuff up all the time for a living.   If you click the photo, you can see all our pictures from St. Lucia.   Hopefully there are none of me in a bathing suit, but if there are, please go ahead and poke your own eyes out with a fork in an effort to erase the images.   Of course, that wouldn’t work because then pictures of me in a bathing suit would be the last thing you ever saw and it would be like that horrific song “ON THE WINGS OF LOVE” in that you would find yourself remembering it on a near-constant basis until you slowly went crazy.   So maybe just try hypnosis or heavy drinking.   Whatever gets you through the day.

But back to the show, which is why you clicked the link to begin with and for some reason I am avoiding writing about because HOLY HANNAH, the EARNESTNESS of this episode was enough to make me repeatedly bang my head against the wall while repeatedly chanting, “MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP.”  If by “chanting”, I mean “screaming”.

Jake earnestly talks about finding love and loving two people which we believe NOT AT ALL because Jake is nothing if not a crap actor.   Then Tenley earnestly tries to convince Jake’s earnest family that she totally is right for the job.    Her earnestness is near-heartbreaking because it’s totally obvious at this point that Jake’s compass is pointing straight at Vienna and will not be swayed in the direction of the Disney princess who is chirping away nervously in the background about her ex-husband.   Jake can’t even hear her.   At this point, it’s just (earnest) white noise.   Which I wish it was for us, too, because the sound of Tenley’s voice is making me feel like throwing myself out the window.    Except that our windows aren’t very high off the ground and apart from breaking the glass, probably nothing would happen except a bunch of time and trouble attempting to explain to the insurance company about how Tenley made me do it.

Vienna doesn’t bother to be earnest, she is too busy grinning because someone once told her that guys dig chicks who smile.    She cannot wipe that smile off if she tries.   Did you see that movie Coraline?  Which, btw, was totally creepy and am sure the cause of nightmares amongst all the toddlers whose misguided parents interpreted “animated” to mean “kid-appropriate”?  Anyway, in that movie the Other Mother sews the Other Wyborn’s mouth into a grin which is nearly exactly like Vienna’s grin and also, equally creepy.   Hell, we’re all having nightmares now and no one on The Bachelor had those scary button eyes.   Somehow — and I’m not sure how because I was busy looking at the scenery — Vienna manages to convince Jake’s overly-involved and earnest family that she would fit right in with their clan mentality.   I actually feel sorry for these people:   Having been vetted and approved by the matriarch, what happens if your marriage then goes on the skids?   You’d hardly be allowed to divorce because the WOMEN ARE THE GLUE THAT HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER.   What?   These people are adults, they don’t need “glue”, they are attached by “genetics” and the full-on crazy that is the Ruling Mother.

Wow, I’m getting tired of typing this all out.   If I were dancing simultaneously, I’d need a nap right now.

Let’s move on to the one on one date with Tenley where Jake says that she’s not as hot as Vienna and she THANKS HIM.  Oh no, she didn’t.   OH YES, SHE DID.    She THANKED HIM.    Tenley, sweetie, you are in need of therapy.   He dissed you in a completely inappropriate way.   You do not thank him, in this circumstance.   You gather up your dignity and advise him that you wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on earth because, actually, you think that it’s important that you’re attracted to each other, and then you shove him off the side of the boat where you can only hope that he pees in the water and sends a barracuda into some sort of a one-fish feeding frenzy.

But!  It didn’t stop there.  Because she thanked him again.   And again.   Then he went back to her room — SAME AS OUR ROOM! — and she thanked him again.  AND AGAIN.   AND THEN ONE MORE TIME.   Thank you, Jake, for making me even more insecure than I was before and pointing out that, indeed, to win love on The Bachelor, you need to buy the really really BIG fake boobies!    I could have cried at this point.  In fact, I might have.   I don’t even know.   It was actually worse than when — earlier this season — she set about apologizing 4000 times for having been married before.    STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT.   GAHHHHHHHHHHH.

OK, then he hooks up with Vienna, who is staying just around the piton from Tenley at Anse Chastanet, which really does have the best snorkelling on St. Lucia in case you are interested in going there, but seriously, Jalousie is nicer.   That place where Jake was staying was just being built when we were there, so I can’t comment but actually it looked pretty fabu also.   GOD, I WANT TO GO BACK.   I do.   PLEASE SOMEONE SEND ME BACK THERE AGAIN.

The date with Vienna is as expected, there is a bunch of making out and groping and panting and rubbing and then a bit of staring deeply into each other’s slightly crossed eyes.   Did you know that Rene Descartes had a fetish for cross-eyed women?   I’m just here to inform and I doubt there are many places I could really shoehorn that into conversation.   Feel free to use it to impress people at cocktail parties, I stole it from someone else so it’s really free for the taking.

It is so painfully obvious that Jake’s going to pick Vienna, and not just because he’s told us all season that he picks the girl that everyone warns him not to pick, that the whole fiasco becomes almost unbearable AND I forgot to buy any wine to get me through the episode, which makes it even more difficult, sort of like scaling Mt. Everest having forgotten your hiking boots and being forced to wear flip flops for the trek.  i.e. Painful.   Very very very painful.

I would have fast forwarded but I wanted to see the scenery and also because I have a responsibility to you, my people.   Still, I have nothing to say about any of what ensued except that I really did think Tenley’s dress was pretty.   Usually I hate what these people are wearing because they look like they are going out for Miss Teen Drag Queen USA but actually this one was nice.   The breaking-up-with-Tenley scene was at least fifteen minutes too long, ABC.  For the love of Mike or anyone else, we do not want to see people in real pain with actual crying and whatnot.   IT MAKES US UNCOMFORTABLE, if by “us”, I mean “me”.

Then there is Vienna in some sort of appalling number that looks like she is auditioning to be a mermaid in the Las Vegas production of The Slutty Mermaid.   We brace ourselves for the proposal, but what’s this?   Jake gives Vienna back HER ring and good lord, she looks like she’s going to toss him off the precipice!   She is shocked!   HE IS DUMPING HER!   For about ten seconds, I almost respect him.   Also, it always amuses me when rejectees get pissed instead of sad.   THAT’S A RED FLAG, JAKE.

But wait!  It was just one of those wacky red herrings, he’s proposing after all.   Craptacular!   And totally predictable!   She must hurriedly re-arrange her face back into her creepy Wyborn grin!    Ah, there it is.   Relief.   Then it’s the big YES and a bunch of tongue kissing that I could live without ever seeing again and certainly could live without hearing, but wait!  I don’t have to hear it!  Because ON THE WINGS OF LOVVVEE LOOK AT THE TWO OF US!  FLYING HIGH UPON THE WINGS OF LOVE!   Oh god, make it stoppppppppppppppppp.

La la la.

The END.

Also, “I TOLD YOU SO”.

But wait!  There is more!   Let us not forget AFTER THE FINAL ROSE even though we wish we could because there is Tenley and she is so thankful!  She is!   She can love again on national TV!   She thanks Jake!   AGAIN!   MAKE IT STOP SOMEONE, PLEASE!   OK, fine, I fast forwarded a bit here but I did see her lips forming the words “Thank you!”    TENLEY, hie thee directly to therapy.   Please.   For all of us.

Then there they are.   Vienna looking decidedly less thrilled than she did throughout the series.  Is this because she’s realized that without the fancy trips and wardrobe, Jake is just… boring?   OK, fine, I’ll admit it, AGAIN I bought US Magazine where I read that she wielded an empty wine bottle over her ex’s head sometime after the show wrapped and it’s an image that I cannot shake even though there was no picture, it just seems so plausible, and yes, magazines make crap up all the time, but there is something about Vienna that just screams, “I WILL BEAT YOU WITH A BOTTLE!”   So we’ll see how it goes.   I can’t honestly say that I care at this point and Jake spouting a bunch of cliches about love made me want to ball LOVE up and chuck it in the toilet and give it a flush and then I realized that Jake is not an authority on love and it’s all going to be OK for humanity as a whole because we won’t have to hear him talk ever again on any subject and then…

Christ in a tutu, yes we WILL have to see him again because he’s going to be on Dancing with the Stars which is where Bachelor contestants go to start climbing the ladder of TV success!   OH NOES.   I don’t even watch that show and I’m distressed by this news.    Actually, at first I thought they were talking about So You Think You Can Dance and THAT actually might have been funny.   Foiled again.   Drat!

Wow, this is long.   I’m going to wind it up because my wrist is hurting and getting carpal tunnel from writing books is one thing but getting carpal tunnel from writing about The Bachelor is really really embarrassing.   DON’T TELL ANYONE.   Seriously.   It’s our secret, mkay?

Oh, wait, I can’t wind this up without mentioning how WTF HAPPENED?   When did Ali become America’s sweetheart?  Because I’m really really starting to question America’s taste.   She, like, you know, like can’t even string together a, like, sentence.   I AM NOT GOING TO BE WATCHING, ABC.   You have finally — after all these years! — broken my spirit.   It’s over.   You do not get my final rose.

THE END.

This time I really mean it!  I do!

Bye.

Am going now.

Really.

Bye bye.

Filed under: The Bachelor