I stopped learning lessons in 7th grade

You know what really grinds my gears? Television. Let’s be honest; even if you like shows on television, the Writers Guild of America strike is putting most of them on hiatus. For example, Saturday Night Live is on re-runs. This is annoying, because now I can’t spend 40 minutes of watching crappy sketches on the show just to get to the most recent Digital Short! And the supreme act of masochism that is watching Steve Carell’s performance on “The Office” no longer exists, and now I’ve had to resort to swallowing glass and sugar in order to receive the same amount of pleasure and pain.

For those of you who are too thick to understand what the Writers Guild’s strike entails, let me explain. Webster’s Dictionary defines a strike as “the penalty a batter receives for not hitting a ball that is within the designated strike zone created by the batter’s stance.” Naturally the strike couldn’t have come at a more convenient time for the soulless television network corporations, since most shows are put on hiatus anyway for the various holiday movie marathons.

Holiday Movie Marathon season starts around Halloween, where some of the cable networks show 230,591,235-hour marathons of crappy made-for-TV movies like “My Boyfriend Was A Werewolf” on ABC Family, “My Boyfriend Was A Werewolf: The Musical” on The Disney Channel, and “My Boyfriend Assaulted, Raped, and Sold My Daughter to Cambodian Slave Traders” on The Lifetime Network.

I have multiple complaints against the fear-mongering of The Lifetime Network. The first has regards to them showing re-runs of The Golden Girls, Mad About You, and Will & Grace instead of letting these shows rest in peace. You know those stories about ghosts that can’t enter the afterlife because the old mill they died in is still making Betty Crocker cake mix or some crap like that, so the ghost is stuck on earth with “unfinished business”? I assume that’s what those shows would feel like if they were sentient and had the capability of emotion.

The second complaint regards their made-for-TV movies with titles like “My Daughter Became Pregnant And The Baby Exploded In Her Belly Because That’s What Happens When You Get Pregnant Before You Get Married You Irresponsible Wench For Not Watching Over Your Daughter More Carefully To Prevent Her From Getting Pregnant Ugh You Make Me Sick Just Looking At You Stop Crying It Hurts My Ears.”

These films hook aging housewives to watch them while they’re stuck at home polishing their husband’s shoes and instill unrealistic conclusions to unlikely situations. And it’s not just the plot that upsets me, it’s the fact that the women are generally incredibly helpless to the evil, oppressive man-machine that surrounds them. These films cultivate an environment of meekness, and as a part of the oppressive man-machine, I will not accept weakness in my house, nor unpolished shoes. Girl, get back to work!

Or maybe my main complaint against The Lifetime Network is that a couple of my (female) housemates are inclined to watch it when I’d much rather be watching Mythbusters.

Following the Halloween marathon, you then get the Thanksgiving marathon, to which my brother spent the majority of Thanksgiving morning and afternoon watching holiday-themed Fresh Prince of Bel Air re-runs. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy me some Fresh Prince. Just watch me do my perfected Carlton dance. It’s glorious in its mediocrity.

But really, just about any sitcom that centers its plot around holiday celebrations is terrible, because they try to teach us lessons, rather than offering up doses of mindless slapstick. I’m in college, I stopped learning lessons in seventh grade. These days, I simply rationalize my mistakes in order to blame others or the laws of physics for my actions. Does this make me a coward? Yes, but I’m just trying to survive, and since all living organisms since the beginning of life are built on a framework of “survival of the fittest,” my cowardice is a finely-tuned evolutionary development. Just ask any member of my family what our family motto is: “Cowards Live To Tell.”

So now that Thanksgiving is past, I anxiously await the Christmas movie marathon, with “Frosty The Generally Amiable Snowman” on ABC Family, “Christmas Elf High School Musical” on The Disney Channel, and “My Daughter Was Abducted and Violated By A Man Dressed As A Snowman Who Happened To Be My Second Husband Who I Married Even Though I Saw He Had Abusive Tendencies But The Sex Was Good So I Married Him Anyway You’d Think A Defense Attorney Wouldn’t Be Such A Pushover Like Myself But I Sure Proved You Wrong My Haircut Looks Like It Was Stolen From The ’80s” on The Lifetime Channel.