Wow. Princesses.

I know, I make a big deal about supposedly disdaining "reality tv." And frankly, most of what passes for "reality" tv does not seem to be very "real," at least as regards the world I live in.

But last night I got sucked into a trainwreck of a show that just gobsmacked me. And I watched it, alternately feeling a little guilty that I was "spying on" the women involved, and being utterly fascinated at whatever sociological insights I could gain from it.

The show is one of those VH1 things. (remember when VH1 actually played videos?). It was called "You're Cut Off." It featured a group of eight (I think?) self-styled "princesses" who were apparently more or less "kept" women (whether by their parents or by a sugar daddy, something like that). I don't think any of them actually worked for a living, or if they did, they sure didn't have the same attitude towards money that someone like me who works for a living does.

I realize you have to tone things down by about a half on "reality" shows. And that much of the drama is invented for the camera. But even with that: crikey. I'm reminded why I never had a "pack" of female friends. Because all too often, "packs" of women wind up turning on each other (WHY do we do that? Why can women be so awful and backstabby and have a tendency to say EXACTLY the thing that will bring the most pain to someone else?)

And how fricken' spoiled they were. Apparently one of the women had a credit card with a $50K limit - which she regularly maxed out. (Folks: I don't make very much over $50K IN A YEAR. And that's before taxes.) And they were shrieking and horrified over the fact that they were being forced to go to the grocery store and buy food.

But what really got be was how nonfunctional these women apparently were. For one thing: the theme of the episode this week was something to do with responsibility and not taking the "help" for granted. A professional cleaner came to the house to help school them in housework. (One girl: "I don't know how to make a bed." Wait, what? How can you not know how to make a bed?)

In return, the next day, they were slated to go and help her clean some famous woman's house (I don't know who she was but presumably she was famous as she only went by her first name). Two of the girls (they're in their 20s but I'm going to call them "girls" because they act like 5 year olds) flatly refused. They sat in the guest bedroom and did nothing. The other girls, some of them did ok, some of them were unbelievably and monumentally clueless.

I was, as I said, gobsmacked: how do you grow to adulthood in America without knowing how to clean a toilet? Or knowing what a broom is properly called? (Granted, they may have been playing dumb, both for the cameras and to make themselves look even more entitled and special, but still). I remember watching and thinking, "Wow. If we really suffer a financial collapse in this country these women are going to literally be among the first to die." Because they can't take care of themselves. They are apparently utterly and totally parasitic and dependent upon their servants. (And if they talk to them the way they talked to the cleaner, I'm surprised some of their "help" hasn't stabbed them to death yet. I would never let someone talk to me the way those girls talked to the professional cleaner).

On the one hand, I'm horrified by their behavior: how can someone feel they are entitled to act like that? On the other hand, I feel sorry for them: they really are incredibly dependent. They do not seem able to function (even discounting for the craziness of reality show world) to function without someone to caretake them. Their entire sense of self seems to come, not from what they can do, but from what they can buy or how many men they can attract. Or how good they look in their clothes.

It makes me want to line up their parents and slap them. Because when you get young adults who act like that, by and large it's the parents' fault.

I knew people who, as it turned out, were monumentally wealthy (well, compared to my family). BUT their parents did stuff like, "Did you pick up your towels and hang them up after showering? Did you? You know it's not Carmen's (or whoever the cleaning lady was) job to pick up after you!" Or they made sure their kids knew how to take care of themselves - even if they had a cook, even if they had "help."

Also, the girls (well, some of them. The girls who actually successfully cleaned house were "picked" by the other girls (b*tches) to go and buy food because of some logic like, "It doesn't kill them to work like it would kill us") were sent out to shop for groceries. With a budget of $200. Which they couldn't make, and had to put stuff back, and I wondered if they actually got enough food to feed everyone, because it looked like they had some expensive stuff (Perrier, for example) there. And they moaned and whined about how "exhausted" they were after grocery shopping. (Oh hell girls. Take my day. Get up at 5. Do a work-out. Come over to work. Teach for several hours. Do some research work. Counsel a bunch of students. Sit through a meeting. Then go to the grocery store at the worst possible time of day (4 pm) because it's the only time you're free. THEN go back home and cook dinner, and clean up after that, and maybe do a little house cleaning. Then you can tell me if just going grocery shopping is so exhausting).

One thing that was sort of funny: apparently they were shifted off their pricey drinky-drinks and on to box wine. Box wine! Horrors! One of the girls couldn't figure out how the bag of wine worked, and finally, finding the spigot, remarked, "Oh, is this like a cow?" And another one asked something like, "Is this some people's job? To sit in a factory and put these bags into boxes?" (Ah, the light begins to dawn...there are other people out there, they have lives, and maybe, just maybe, they matter?)

As I said, I realize most of it is trumped up crap for reality tv. But watching the "girls" try to clean, it's pretty clear none of them ever really had. And the attitudes - even discounting half, as I said before, they're all miserable toothaches of women and not someone I'd want to know.

And you know, it makes me grateful, in a strange way, that I had parents who were professors. That my mom expected me to know how to change the sheets on a bed at age 8 or something. And run the washing machine not much later than that. And that I had chores where I had to help clean the house and do some of the yard work. And that my mom taught me how to cook.

Because you know? There's a certain joy and satisfaction in being able to take care of yourself. As I said in an earlier post, I feel gratitude and a little pride when I pay my bills off each month knowing that my education and my work is what provides the money that allows me to do that - I don't have to depend on someone else for a handout or an allowance. And I feel a certain pride in that I can keep up my own house, that I know how to do things like change my own furnace filters, that cleaning a toilet doesn't automatically make me shut down in a wailing heap of "I shouldn't have to be DOING this!"

But it does amaze me that - again, even discounting for the unreality of reality television - there are adult women who are apparently so flounderingly helpless that they cannot care for themselves without the support of "daddy" or a husband.