Karl Klockars

You can’t watch Bravo without getting assaulted with 8 promos per spot break about all the amazing new reality programs they’ve got running now, coming up, what you missed, what they’re thinking about, so on.

While watching Project Runway last night, I saw the promo for “Date My Ex” at least a half dozen times in 90 minutes.  So I was thinking – what would a show be like where people had to date my (or any of our) nutbag exes?  I think it’d go a little something like this…

Everyone’s got crazy ex-girlfriends, right?  At least one or two fruit-loops hanging around in their dating history?  Everyone should – how else will you know what you’re looking for without working through some blatant personality flaws to give you a baseline for crazy?  If you don’t kiss a few psychos, you’ll never be sure you’ve got The One when you meet her.

I can think of a handful of glaring examples of loopitude that would make for some good reality TV.  If only they’d really show this kind of stuff on Jo and Slade.  (Slade?  His name is Slade?  C’mon.)

Date My Nutbag Ex Challenge #1:  The Dog

All right, contestants, here’s your setup.  See this particular ex?  What she’s going to do is drag you around to a dozen different animal shelters, filling out applications for puppies all around the city.  Then you’ll have to be her shoulder while she cries about being denied for every last one of them.  You’ll have to explain to her that because neither of you are home for long enough, they can’t approve you for a dog.

Then you’ll have to bite your tongue when she comes home with a yipping little shit that requires 2 miles of walking a day, and won’t be housebroken.  At least not by her.  Then, when the dog evacuates all over the inside of its crate on a Sunday morning (the night after two bottles of Boone’s Farm) and won’t stop barking, you’ll have to try to sleep through her waking up and screaming “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT THE FUCK UP” as though the dog understands.

Bonus points if you last longer than 2 weeks.  Contestants will not be required to sign an actual lease.  I did.  I’m stupid.

Challenge #2:  The Drugs.

Contestants will be subjected to a parade of scuzzy humanity rolling through her house, dropping off and picking up whatever the girls wants or needs.  It’s usually weed, but sometimes the Lotto comes up with mushrooms or ecstacy or something – your job will be to maintain her sobriety to a reasonable amount, or at least keep her out of a vehicle.

Then, we’ll create a post-breakup scenario where she calls you and tells you that she’s been doing a bunch of coke in order to deal with the end of the relationship.  Have fun!

Or:  She’ll be the kind of girl that gets mad when you have two beers while watching TV because her dad was “a fucking useless drunk.”  Then when you’re gone for an afternoon she barrels into a half a bottle of vodka and is on the floor crying when you get back from Circuit City.  Enjoy the hair-holding while she tosses up the half-box of Boca burgers she scarfed down.

Bonus points:  Can you get her to pay for dope without using a check?  She’s dumb enough to leave a paper trail but stubborn enough to tell you it’s fine, she can do what she wants.  Succeed and you can drink yourself to sleep, again.  All these drugs lead directly into…

Challenge #3:  The Sexual History.

Here’s what I’m picturing.  Let’s assume that an episode of this particular show runs 30 minutes.  They don’t really expect to drag out this drama over the course of an hour, do they?  What are we, Top Chef?  No.  30 minutes means 2 breaks of 4 minutes apiece.  22 minutes of actual content.  Of those 22 minutes, each person that makes up a notch on her proverbial headboard gets a full minute of time to introduce themselves.

So about 21 minutes later, after Jeff has described his 9 month “friends with benefits” setup wherein he ditched her because he started dating her best friend (who gave him crabs, which he gave to her because he gave it a couple weeks before he told her about the friend) and after Mike has relived – in vivid, bleeped out detail – the 15 minutes of sweaty fun they had underneath the pool table at his friend Brad’s kegger party, contestants will have a minute to peruse her medical history for diseases.  Roll credits and tease for next week.  Oh, did I mention the two guys that came out simultaneously, high fived each other and left?  Make what you will of that.

Challenge #4:  Ditch ‘em, in the hopes America will forget you completely.

For example, were you to break up with America the way one would break up with my exes, America would try to be “friends,” get you to meet them at Dennys, then tell you all about the half-dozen guys she’s letting share her girlybits.  Then discuss her psychiatric relapses.  Then ask if you want to go for a “ride” and “hang out somewhere else.”  Then you tell America about your new girlfriend.  Then she goes batshit crazy, tosses her Moons Over My Hammy at you and storms out.

Either that, or America would call you 4 months after your nasty breakup, and shoot the shit like nothing had ever happened.  Then she’d try to casually talk about her “roomate” in her new one-bedroom apartment.  Then she’d try to get you to go out to lunch, and then when you tell America to forget you ever existed, she gets all bitchy and hangs up.

Next season:  Date My Friends’ One-Night Stands!  The challenge:  see if you can remember their names when you wake up, and try not to show how repulsed you are by your decisions from the night before!  Only on Fox!