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Monday, March 19, 2007

House Hunters Junkie

You know I love my HGTV. When I called to set up cable in our new house and the cable gal was rattling off packages, I told her, “I just have one question. Does that package include HGTV?”

She said, “It includes ESPN, MSNBC, the Discovery Channel…” and I said, “I don’t care about that, dammit! Tell me if it has the HGTV!!”

I gotta have my House Hunters. You see, I not only watch it, I Tivo it. I watch as many episodes as I can—even the international version. And when I’m not Tivo-ing HH, I act like I’m living it. When we went house hunting in Atlanta (and yes, I did research being on the show but apparently they’ve got plenty of hunters right now), I kept doing commentary like we were on House Hunters:

“The next day Jackie took them to see a smaller but updated townhome in the city…” I would say as our realtor opened the lock box. She’d ask, “Who are you talking to?”

“Oh, I’m Suzanne Whang, host of House Hunters.” Then I would make Frank list the pros and cons of each house with me. We really did have it narrowed down to three. We would have been perfect for the show! Plus, our natural good looks wouldn’t hurt either.

The other day I knew I had hit a House Hunters high (or low). Not only was this particular episode I was watching a re-run, it was one I had already seen and I still watched it. It was this cute couple with this little girl named Nellie. They lived in Virginia and were looking for a new house in a really expensive part of town. Even though I knew which house they picked, I found myself yelling at the screen:

“No!! Not the one with 1.25 baths! You need two full baths! What are you crazy? That room doesn’t even have a closet! I can’t believe you’re paying 700K+ for this! You should have gone with house #2!”

Then yesterday I was watching another episode that I had Tivo’d. Frank came into the living room just as I was saying, “Nice!” in response to an updated kitchen. “Are you talking to the house hunters?” he asked.

“That’s right. Oh, wood paneling. Abort! Abort!” I yelled.


And then, my favorite part: when Suzanne says, “So which one did they choose?” and they review the three houses one last time with that bee-boppy music and clever descriptions:
House #1: Bungalow in the city with high price tag
House #2: Affordable space in the suburbs
House #3: Updated townhome; single car garage

I scream out my choice: “Number 3!! Number 3!” And sometimes I change my mind, “Wait. No, number 2, number 2!!”

The whole experience is exhausting. Sometimes I break a sweat. So why would I need the cable package with ESPN? I’ve got plenty of sports to watch.

5 comments:

Jessi said...

you'd be more entertaining to watch than this hippie couple I watched last time. No personality.

Maybe they were stoned.

Writinggal said...

And we would be better at faking like we had never seen the houses before.

Anonymous said...

It must be genetic, because I am a junkie too. I have watched the episode with cute Nellie several times. I don't think there is one HH I have not seen!
I also am addicted to "Buy Me", the depressing show where Canadians try to sell there homes, and they play spooky music!

Writinggal said...

Buy Me makes me sad. The sellers usually end up crying. I'm also a fan of "My House is Worth What?" and "National Open House."

Writinggal said...

While I ate lunch today I watched a family look for a home in Jamaica!