To The Extreme

You know, there are probably a fair amount of people who would argue that blogs are simply narcissistic online confessionals. I have certainly confessed plenty of things to those out there in internet-land. One of these is my general messiness, my scatter-brained method of housekeeping. Sigh...a Mommy Lipstick aka Martha Stewart I am not.

I do not, however, have 300 rats in my house or piles of paper or chickens. Have you seen Hoarders or Hoarding: Buried Alive? Compulsive hoarding, the shows explain, is a disorder in which people are irresistibly and irrationally compelled to keep anything. At all. It is, well, rather extreme. And, I have to say, rather addicting. The gruesome car wreck that you simply must stare at regardless of your better judgment is an oh-so-obvious analogy. Very apropos.

There are plenty of other extreme shows out there. Intervention is about people with extremely tragic lives, I've lost count of the shows about extreme weight loss and people with very bad fashion sense, I thoroughly enjoyed the show about the extreme coupon-using folks, but I am most perplexed by My Strange Addiction. That one includes a story about a girl who eats chalk and one who sleeps with her hair dryer...on. Very odd and extreme indeed.

Why are these shows so popular? More and more of them seem to be appearing. Clearly we are riveted by the utter weirdness and the ability to be voyeurs. One more Lipstick confession...me too.

P.S. People of Wal-Mart provides some pretty extreme entertainment. It's no secret that I heart pink and green. What a combo this is.