baggage; or, what do you expect from Jerry Springer?

I returned home from a day of student conferences and Cinco de Mayo festivities exhausted and plopped onto the couch for some good old fashioned mindless television.  Lately, I have been watching the Game Show Network (GSN). It is extraordinarily mindless. Deal or No Deal is on every other minute wedged between The Newlywed Game and a really annoying show that is hosted by the other guy on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (the guy who is not Will Smith). I like it because I don't really have to pay attention, I don't really need to watch the whole thing, and I definitely don't need to have seen last week's episode. But tonight. Oh tonight I caught the last few minutes of a show I have never seen before: Baggage.

Baggage is hosted by Jerry Springer, so you know that it must be all kinds of awesome. I missed most of it, but I think that the concept is that you reveal your emotional or dating baggage and then suitors decide whether or not they would still date that person. Sadly, I only caught the last five minutes.  But, believe me, i will be back for more. In the part I saw a very attractive woman opens a suitcase and reveals a card that says "I choose my cat over any man." She smiles while Jerry Springer goes "Oh my god" as if it said "I am a black widow who has killed my previous four husbands."  She smiles, and the guy, a plain looking man in his 40's, scratches his head and looks at this far more attractive woman with trepidation. She goes on to explain that her cat is very special. She says that the cat "talks to me and calls me mama, can do several tricks, she fetches..."

As this woman talks she starts to glow and gets really excited. The two men get more and more uncomfortable. Then it is time. Springer asks the man if he can live with her "baggage." He says, and this is my favorite part, "Well, you said you could put up with my chronic halitosis, the fact that I had my car re-possessed so that I have to ride the bus everywhere, and my three kids..." Dramatic pause. Then he reaches out and closes the suitcase and says, "I was happy you said you could deal with my baggage, but I can't deal with yours. I think your crazy." Boom. Suitclose slammed. Woman denied. Show is Over.  I was left with Jerry Springer asking me to be sure to tune in next time. Oh yes, Jerry, I will. I will.