Wednesday, September 28, 2011

If you want to get really depressed about the state of humankind, tune in to TLC. On any given night, you can peruse a gallery of carny freaks.

This is the network that brought us Sarah Palin’s Alaska, the former VP candidate’s show about roughing it up by Russia. It’s the network that introduced us to über-mom Kate Gosselin, first with Jon & Kate Plus 8 and then sans Jon in Kate Plus 8. It’s the network that has let us into the lives of polygamists, prepubescent beauty queens, pregnant women who don’t know they’re pregnant, little people named Bill and Jen, and a variety of poor souls with, as TLC puts it, “unique sexual conditions.”

But as Cole and I discovered tonight while we were channel surfing, TLC has one offering that stands above all others: Extreme Couponing. After a few minutes of watching in disbelief, Cole said, “Who are these people?”

Good question. Apparently, they devote their lives to clipping coupons in order to stockpile more food than they could possibly eat before it turns bad. The extreme couponers Cole and I watched procured thousands of dollars of groceries for, like, 20 bucks.

They seem to do it mostly for gluttonous sport, but I saw something else. I stared into the raging abyss that is Extreme Couponing and—sweet mother of mercy—I saw myself.

I’ll be five years into my unemployment, I thought, and this will be me. Forget my once-thriving career as an editor and writer—I’ll be scrounging up coupons to get by. And I’ll haul my goods to my van by the river.

This horrific vision brings me to my next point. More than a few people have told me they feel pangs of guilt for enjoying my blog. To that, I say: Don’t feel guilty—I’m just glad anyone takes the time to read it. I officially give you permission to have a chuckle or two at my expense.

Sure, I’m sometimes crippled by fear on this weird journey of mine. Sure, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, look at the ceiling with bulging eyes, and think, I’m screwed. Sure, I’m reminded that the economy is cratering every time I turn on the TV. Sure, this whole thing sucks in so many ways.

But it’s much better to laugh than to flinch when staring into the abyss. If we can’t keep smiling, then we really are all screwed.