Guilty Pleasure

I am fairly certain that I wrote about this before, but I felt compelled to confess once more...

Two years ago (well, more like a year and a half) I was sitting on the couch reading for a class. My wife came in, picked up the remote control - which is unlike her since she usually doesn't watch much television - and proceeded to put it on the CW. I asked her what she was watching and if I should go to the other room. She skated around what she was going to watch and said that I might want to adjourn to the spare room and my desk. I pressed the issue. Finally, after some cajoling and the opening montage of the show, I found out that my lovely wife was a Gossip Girl junkie.

I began to totally make fun of her for watching that sort of trash. Now, don't get me wrong. When the original 90210 came out, I was in Junior High and definitely watched eagerly. I watched every Real World from season 1 (wow, I am dating myself here) through season 5 when people actually "stopped being polite," but instead of starting "to get real," they just hooked up... a lot... in the mandatory hot tub... on the first night. All this to say, I have watched some trash. But I hadn't been addicted to a high school soap opera since before my voice dropped and I got armpit hair (which, incidentally, the voice dropped when I was 13, but the hair didn't come until I was 17... late bloomer I guess). Now, my 20-something (soon to be 30-something... a former primetime soap opera about yuppies) was enthralled with over-privileged, borderline juvenile delinquents who manage to avoid consequences because of their parents' astounding wealth and social power.

So, I decided to continue reading on the couch in order to be able to point out my wife's ridiculousness. Mistake.

I asked my wife who the characters were, and she began to relate the story line. I asked a few more questions. Then, Chuck Bass, the conniving ladies man with a fantastic wardrobe (which I could never pull off... I mean, who wears lavender??) said the line, "There's something wrong with that level of perfection, it needs to be violated." A VILLIAN!! I instantly liked this guy. Not because I found him honorable, but because he almost epitomized decadence and everything that's wrong in the world, and I wanted to see if he ever "got his" in the end. I was hooked.

All this to say, last night my wife was able to leave work early, and we were able to catch up on the last two episodes of Gossip Girl. It is our guilty pleasure. Usually it involves wine or champagne (technically it's sparkling white wine since champagne only comes from the Champagne Region in France, but that's just semantics), and we sit back and watch the mayhem unfold. It's fun, in a sick and twisted - not to mention voyeuristic sort of way - and we enjoy being together doing this.

I have come to the conclusion that everyone has these guilty pleasures. I don't think they are wrong (unless of course they involve physical or emotional damage to you or others... like adultery or something to that effect). Rather, they are a way to blow off some steam, and perhaps they can serve to bring two people - or more - who share the same guilty pleasure together a little more.

So, what's your guilty pleasure?