One of our television guilty pleasures is "House Hunters International". Actually, everything we watch on television is a guilty pleasure... have you seen "Big Rich Texas"? Pure awesomeness.
But back to "House Hunters International"...
The show is about people who have money to burn and are looking to buy a second home in Zermat, or Belize, or Vanuatu or some other similarly outrageous location. Or, it's some high powered executive who needs to relocate to London or Moscow or Paris.
It's sadistic really, because it combines two things we'll likely never experience again... world travel and living somewhere nice.
But occasionally, they go downmarket, which brings us to last night's episode. It featured Carl and Sarah, a portly looking couple in their late 30's. Carl is British, Sarah, American. How they met wasn't explained. They've been together 13 years, married for 10. Carl moved here, and for the past ten years they've been living Stateside in Sarah's hometown. But Carl is homesick and it's time for a change and they've decided to relocate to Carl's hometown, Buckingham, outside of London.
We first meet up with them at their current home, in...
BAKERSFIELD!
I almost swallowed an ice cube when I saw that. Holy shit. I should have known... Sarah is sporting a classic Bakerdoo, right down to the bad highlights.
Their current home is typical Bako-terranean, stucco McMansion. Obviously new construction since it's built so close to the neighbors that the roofs practically touch and there isn't a stitch of foliage anywhere to be seen.
Now, Bakersfield, even on a good day and if you were feeling generous, would never be considered... pretty. But either by choice or by accident, the producers decided to portray the city in a particularly hideous fashion. They shot Sarah in her convertible, tooling around some of the most downtrodden and ghetto parts of town on a hazy, gruesome looking afternoon. Then they panned out the passenger side as the endless miles of fallow dirt whizzed by which, through the magic of editing, morphed into the lush green rolling English countryside. Our visit to Bakersfield was over and mercifully brief.
I won't bore you with the details of the show. You can watch the grand climax here. But let's just say the Sarah is kind of a whiny bitch. She specifically said she wanted a typical "English cottage", yet every one she was shown was met with...
"It's not as big as we had in Bakersfield."
or
"We had a lot more room in Bakersfield."
or
"I don't know how we could get all our Bakersfield furniture in here."
And then she'd pout. At one point she seemed incredulous as she asked why the homes were so small. Maybe it's because back in Shakespeare's day they didn't anticipate your horrible overstuffed JC Penney furniture and 70 inch flatscreen.
But that wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was that throughout the entire episode, Sarah was speaking with a fake British accent.
"Lovely day, guv'na!"
It was cring-worthy. We both just wanted to throw something at the TV every time she opened her mouth.
By the time it was over we both felt we had just watched the Bakersfield High performance of "My Fair Lady".
