I know more about these women than I do about our forefathers.

Every Friday I head home from work, tear off my bra, put on my biggest pair of sweatpants, order in Pad Se Ew and settle in for a night of TV. Lame? Maybe. But get back to me after you’re working 60-hour weeks in the real world. Friday nights on the couch are sacred.

Last week, as I fired up the DVR to catch up on all the shows I’d missed from the week, I had a rather enlightening moment. Sorta like an Oprah “aha!” moment, only way more embarrassing. My entire DVR was taken up by reality shows. Top Chef, Project Runway, The Real Housewives, Ace of Cakes… Hell, I even had a little Real World/Road Rules Duel on there.

I looked around to make sure none of my neighbors could see my TV through the windows. I mean, I know I like me some crappy TV, but this was just mortifying. My entire life revolves around watching train wrecks on camera! But maybe it’s not that sad? I mean, everyone loves themselves a little trash now and then, right? Those shows are on for a reason. And some of them are actually really good! Maybe not anything on E!, but we can all learn a thing or two from The Biggest Loser, right?

Right?!?

To make myself feel better about my addiction (and my sad, lame life) I asked the CollegeCandy writers to share their reality TV faves this week. You know you got one, too. Share it in the comments!

Norah – Drake University: I’m obsessed with cake shows. I can’t deal with the drama of other reality shows, but I like to watch people make pretty cakes that look impossible to eat.

Brithny – Duke: So You Think You Can Dance, because of the amazing… dancing. Obvi.

Kim – Stanford: Life would be a little less complete without SAY YES TO THE DRESS on TLC. Who doesn’t love weddddings?!

Lauren H – The New School: Top Chef! I’m a big food nerd, so I watch a lot of the food-based contest shows, but Top Chef is by far the best. The only downside is I’m always hungry after!

Caitlin – University of Alabama: I love E!’s reality shows like Girls Next Door, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, and Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami.  UGH but those Lamas…that’s 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back!

Charlsie – Hollins University: Keeping Up With The Kardashians is my favorite reality show because when Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney get into fights they refer to each other as “stupid bitch ass whores.” If it wasn’t for this show, my sister and I would have boring arguments. The Kardashians keep us fresh with insults and put-downs!

Laura – St. John’s: Rock of Love.  I never tire of the varying extremes of trampy-ness these girls will go through to prove their love to Bret Michaels. (Really? Bret Michaels is the best you can do?)

Ricki – University of Michigan: The Bachelor/Bachelorette – It’s impossible to not believe in true love when every date they have is jet skiing in Hawaii or being alone on a deserted island.

Thu – USC: The City, if it is even considered “reality.” You kind of live a fabulous life vicariously through the people.

Leah – Ryerson University: What Not to Wear and Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style because everyone should feel fabulous about the way they look.

Anna R. – Northeastern University: My favorite reality show is The City. I didn’t watch the first season, but now I’m obsessed with it. It’s SO much better than The Hills (which is really lame and pointless now), and the girls’ jobs are actually interesting to watch. Plus, I love seeing what they are all wearing!

Kiki – University of Missouri: I spent at least nine hours of my life this summer watching 16 and Pregnant marathons on MTV. It’s like True Life mixed with Maury mixed with the best damn abstinence education ever.

Samantha – UC Santa Barbara: VH1’s Tough Love! The women are such train wrecks that it’s hard not to watch! Best of all, no one gets kicked off, so your favorite tranny look-alike is there every week for your viewing pleasure. Watch as these women work through their “daddy issues” and try to find love. Priceless quotes to throw around with the roomies guaranteed.

Sarabeth – University of Texas: I may or may not have seen every episode of Say Yes to the Dress. I mean, come on, really expensive and really pretty dresses mixed with a few horrible women with bad taste? It’s Amazing!

Hillary – Columbia: I watch a ton of awful television, but my favorite reality show will always be Man Vs. Beast, a two-hour special aired by Fox in 2003. In it, people competed against animals in a variety of competitions—a sprinter raced a giraffe, a Sumo wrestler had a tug-of-war with an orangutan, and, maybe best of all, competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi had a hot dog eating contest with a bear. Seriously. Just watch a few clips. They’re amazing.

Erica – Kent State University: The Rachel Zoe Project.  LIT-ERALLY, I love watching Rachel (aka The-Walking-Panic-Attack) & Taylor (aka The-Five-Year-Old-Who-Somehow-Made-It-Into-The-Fashion-Biz) go BANANAS.  Seriously, Rachel has influenced my closet and my vocab.  LOVE her.

Kelly- Simmons College: I love the Real Housewives. My roommate and I watch the end-of-season marathons and get completely hooked for 12 hours about people we don’t like and don’t actually care about. What other show can do that?

Zahra- Northwestern University: Lately I’ve been obsessed with Tool Academy. It’s hilarious when the guys break things or get into fights to show off their manliness, but also brings me to tears when I see girls finding out about their guys’ infidelities.

Alex – Lakehead University: My favourite (yes, Canadian spelling!) reality show is Paranormal State on A&E. College students who moonlight as ghost hunters?! I’m in! Plus this show features some very unique stories, like the demon that follows them through several episodes. I’m hooked!

Jasmin – University of Missouri: HGTV’s House Hunters. Strange, I know, but it’s addictive. When I leave Mizzou for the real world, I’ll be ready to remodel my dream home.

Dear Nadya Suleman,

Ever since you gave birth to octuplets last week, the media just can’t stop talking about you. Which seems to suit you just fine; we heard that you’ve hired an agent to help you break into TV. Splendid!

t’s good to see a mother who just loves using her kids for cash flow her children.

You’ll definitely make tons of money from doing interviews, and you’ll even get to meet celebrities. Maybe you’ll even be on Oprah! Or even Maury Povich – he loves those “Who’s the Daddy?” shows!

I noticed you were hoping to land a job on some news show or another as an “on-camera childcare expert.” I’m thinking you are better suited to be a baby-making expert (14 kids under the age of 7…and you are only 33!), but that’s neither here nor there.

Soon, everyone in America will know your name. But listen, if you really wanted to be famous so badly, there’s ways to do so that are a lot easier than going through the pain of giving birth to 14 babies. For example, you could star on a reality show. There once was a time when an ugly blonde girl named Heidi Montag was just another ugly blonde girl trying to make it big in Hollywood. And look at her now, thanks to The Hills! That could be you, Nadya! You, too, could have an ugly D-bag boyfriend, fake everything, and lots and lots of Chanel bags.

Another great option for you, since you apparently like having a million things in your belly, is becoming a competitive eater on ESPN! I can only imagine shoving 98 hotdogs IN is a lot easier than pushing 14 babies OUT. And remember how everyone was obsessed with the guy who won the Nathan’s Hot Dog-Eating contest all those years in a row? That could be you!

Or maybe you could be the big winner on a game show like Jeopardy! or Deal or No Deal. I think that guy who made millions on Jeopardy! got a book deal and even a few TV and commercial appearances out of it.

If all those sound like too much work, you could just become an internet sensation. Post a YouTube video of yourself doing something stupid (or falling off of a table) and you could become an overnight star!

See?  There’s lots of ways you could be famous without having to push 14 babies out of your body… and then change all those diapers…and try to find a man willing to be a step-dad to 14 kids….and pay for their college tuition.

Maybe that’s something to think about if this whole TV childcare-expert thing doesn’t work out for you.

Just a thought.

Good luck with the kids (and congrats for beating Brad and Angie at their own game!),

Laura

Here at the College Candy offices, we watch a lot of TV. In our mindless daytime TV repertoire is everything you can ask for…if you’re asking for trash.

But it’s good trash! Jerry Springer, The Price Is Right, Judge Judy, and then our favorite…back-to-back episodes of Maury.

I love Maury Povich. He’s pushing 70 and he can still instill fear into the toughest baby-daddy. And that, my friends, is admirable. After watching 2 episodes a day for the last few weeks, I’ve noticed a pattern from Maury. He’s not just a talk show host. He’s a teacher willing to listen, educate, and then find our real fathers. And because he’s a veritable saint, there are many things we could all learn from Mr. Povich.

Write this down:

If you feed your children whatever they want….they will be obese. And Maury will let you know you’re a terrible parent.

Boys Beware: Women who look like men are way more common than one would think.

“You don’t know” any angry (or, slutty) teen girls. And if you do? “They don’t care” what you think!

Guys, you’re probably the father. Girls, stop having so much unprotected sex.

Forget birth control, forget condoms. I have found IT. And by IT I mean the foolproof way to stop teenage/unwanted pregnancies, stop the spread of std’s, hell–it might even stop you from wanting to have sex (I said might). Okay, all of the above may put Maury Povich out of a job- but I’m pretty sure my idea is like, uh, genius. How come no one has ever thought of this before? Sure all those conservative-good-Christian-political people preach teaching abstinence only education as a way to stop std’s and pregnancies out of wedlock (which is clearly not working in this country) and those a bit more liberal preach the importance of teaching safe sex practices and forms of birth control. I am not discounting that. BUT I do think my idea is a fantabulous new way to put a halt to this “who’s my baby-daddy” nonsense going on in our society right now.

Where did this brilliant idea come from? Wellllll, moving back home for the summer has made my Friday and Saturday nights … different (to say the least). I have traded in shots and bar crawls for yoga class and early bird movies. Partayyy, I know. The past two nights, I have seen Knocked Up and Waitress, both which have given me the inspiration for a new found form of birth-control.

It happened in an instant- a theater chock full of horny teen and twenty-somethings on dates or in groups screamed and squirmed at the sight and very real experience of birth. Nothing says romance like seeing a close up of a baby’s headed crowning in Katherine Heigl’s (or body double-which gets me thinking… how do they even cast for that?) vajayjay or Keri Russell’s full frontal face close-up screaming bloody murder.

Within seconds guys dropped their girl’s hands and placed them back in their buckets of popcorn and just like that it was goodbye late night hookup plan and hellllo Playboy and lotion. My gal pal and I were scarred for life- no kids and no getting into any situation that might lead to that whole baby-crowning, screaming my head of kind of thing (I am shuddering as I am typing this because I haven’t been able to get the image out of my head for the past 48 hours)

Not to mention this new proposed birth control of mine is not only cheaper (around 9 bucks or less if you have a valid student ID) it also screams ‘no weight gain or mood swings here-thank you very much’.

So trust me, force yourself to see Knocked Up (it is actually hysterical minus the whole birthing thing) or watch any real-live birth delivery. That oughta help next time you are thinking of getting it on without making sure he has one on.

And if not… that’s what the paternity tests on Mr. Mo Po’s show are there for.