Disclaimer! Fireworks Numero Deux...

Well, as my luck would have it, the first show of the second season of Donnie Loves Jenny was not what I’d hoped it would be. Especially since I highly recommended it to y’all as my second “Fireworks!!” Sigh. This reminds me of something that happened about 36 years ago:

My Sweet Hubby (MSH) and I were in New Orleans for a convention. We’d just been married a little over a year. I was 25 and MSH was 35. Babies. We were invited to dinner with some VERY fancy—I mean FANCY—peeps. Three other couples. MSH knew the husbands of two of the couples (these four were both in their early to mid-60s—the other couple MSH did not know was in their mid to late 40s). MSH warned me that the two men he knew had “…more money than God.” The dinner was at a snobby/snotty/hoity-toity 5-Star restaurant. We were both quite nervous and, on the way to meet them, while we were in our cab, I remember MSH and I wishing we could back out. Seriously. Get out of the cab...go to a payphone (no cells!), call the restaurant and ask them to say we’d become ill.

It actually went quite well. (Or so we naively thought.) They were all six tres nice. Classy. Kind. Asked us a lot of questions about ourselves. Shared a lot of innerstin’ facts about themselves and their families. The rocks on all three of the women’s hands? Their bracelets and necklaces? OH. MY. STARS. I’d never seen such jewelry—up close and personal—in my life.

We were there almost three hours! As the evening was winding down—around 10:00 p.m.—one of the elegant/loaded (money-wise—not alcohol-wise) ladies asked MSH and me what we were going to do. Go to a party? Go to our hotel bar? We said: No. Actually, we’re going to hurry back to our room to watch Saturday Night Live!

Let’s remember this, Friends: In l979, we had no video recorders. No DVRs. When you watched a favourite television show, you watched it then and there—at the time and on the channel (We had about ten total channels, maybe…) it came on. With all of the commercials. Of course, commercials allowed us to go to the powder room, get a snack, throw some clothes into the dryer. Etc. We could get a heckuvalot accomplished in two to three minutes...trust me. None of the three couples had ever seen Saturday Night Live. What? Seriously? We couldn’t believe it.

ELC to Our Hostesses/Hosts aka the Bazillionaires:

Oh, you must watch it sometime! It’s sooo funny! The comedians are hysterical. They have guest celebrity hosts and highlight current events hilariously. It’s marvelous! All six of them said that was what they’d do when they got back to their hotel. Watch Saturday Night Live!

MSH and I were quite proud of our little naïve, country selves! We thought we were a BIG HIT with these “old money” peeps.

We raced to our hotel room, donning our jammies right on time for SNL. Within twenty minutes, we were completely/totally mortified/humiliated. That particular night, every single word out of the cast’s mouths, every skit, every second of this show was HORRIBLE. Gross. Shocking. Mean-spirited. We couldn’t believe what we’d done—told these lovely women and men to watch this sick show. We wanted to call their rooms—except we didn’t know where they were, exactly—and say: TURN IT OFF. TURN SNL OFF. Please! We made a mistake! We promise we’re nice people who do NOT approve of this inappropriate nonsense.

We never saw any of them again. Literally. Never. Ever. Anywhere. Coincidence? I don’t know. I can’t answer that. What I can say is this:

(1) We didn’t stop watching SNL—but we were very careful about who we recommended it to!; and

(2)  I thought I’d learned to be careful about promoting “edge-y” shows/movies/books.

Donnie Loves Jenny. Sheesh. I’m going to stick with it—for the time-being. However, I’ll completely understand if you watched it and wondered what in the world I was thinking. TLC asked me that very thing the day after she watched this season’s first show. She alleges she's quite done. Thank you very much. (Yes. This is the Chick who watches the Real Housewives' Insanity. Is she kidding me?)

ELC's (defensive) reply to TLC:

I don’t know, TLC, what I was thinking. What came over me. I should have known better. Maybe. The four or five shows I saw from last season? Clever and cute. Yes—some bleeped language. Still, IMHO, a good reality show.

Apparently—My Bad.

(Unless you liked it—then MY GOOD! Winky.Wink.)

ta-ta for now, Sillies…