Irrelevant Cheetah

As you may or may not be aware, one of my hobbies is cryptozoology, the study of unknown animals such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and honest politicians. A few years back I started an organization, the Institute for the Investigation of the Unknown, and gave it a website. I have been horribly negligent lately about updating the site, but it still receives several hundred visits a month, mostly from people looking for chupacabra pictures, for some reason.

Yesterday, I received an email from a producer for ABC’s “Wife Swap” television program. They’re starting to cast for Season 4, and one of their goals is to cast a cryptozoologist and his family (I swear I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.) The family must have two parents (including a wife, I assume) and must have at least one offspring between 6 and 17 years old.

Have you ever seen this show? They take two wildly disparate families and the wives/mothers switch places for two weeks in an effort to “see how the other half lives,” normally with as much reality-TV drama thrown in as possible.

Now, my wife and I have watched the show once or twice, and shared a few laughs along with the rest of America about the shenanigans that inevitably ensue when Wife #1 (rich and privileged) discovers that she must now clean the rabbit cage and muck out the horses’ stalls and Wife #2 (hard-working farmer’s wife) suddenly gets to lounge in bed all day. So when I read in the email that the participating family receives a $20,000 honorarium, my ears perked up, and I forwarded the gist of the email to my wife.

Her response (and I quote): Is there a leak over there? Did you hit your head? Are you dehydrated? (As a side note, this is not an uncommon reaction of hers to various communiqués we have during the course of a normal working day.)

So. Nix on the wife swap, obviously. I am now forced to ask several other questions. Hard-hitting, journalism-type questions, like: exactly what is it about a cryptozoologist’s home life that ABC thinks will be a hit? I can only imagine the image the producers have in their heads about “Life in a cryptozoologist’s house.”

HUSBAND: Well, so long, you two! I’m off to search, once again, for Bigfoot! Wish me luck!

WIFE: Good luck, dear! I’ll clean out the chupacabra cage while you’re gone! Do you know what time you’ll be home?

HUSBAND: It might be a little late, honey. Grover called – he’s got a lake monster sighting in Idaho that he just doesn’t know what to do with. I’ll probably have to bail him out with the press again.

OFFSPRING: Why is there fairy crap in my Cheerios?

I guess you won’t be seeing me on television anytime soon, unless the project I’m currently working on with Dr. Werberjensen goes horribly awry (a definite possibility, given our previous track record.) However, I do get $1000 if I refer a family. Any of you suddenly developing an interest in finding the Yeti?