When I was about 6, I followed my brother into a House of Mirrors at an amusement park. He ditched me about 1.3 seconds later citing some bullshit like, “Oh, I didn’t see you behind me.” Really, dear brother? You couldn’t see me in a HOUSE OF MIRRORS?
I have a terrible sense of direction. If I tell you, “Oh that really good pizza place we liked is right over there!” it’s not. It’s probably not in the same town. Also, if you try giving me directions and say something stupid like “It’s just north of the freeway” I’m going to punch you in the neck. North is up, jackass. Give me some good old-fashioned rights and lefts, okay?
So imagine young Shelly (who often gets lost on an airplane trying to find her seat after a visit to the lavatory) alone in a carnival torture house designed to confuse young children and separate them from their families. Now imagine having to see your horrified little face reflected back 1000x into infinity.
But I’m no dummy. Continued movement would have been futile. It didn’t have 2,945 back issues of Tiger Beat or a Mickey Mouse telephone, but that house of mirrors was my new home. So I plopped down right there and accepted my fate. God, I missed Pepsi and elephant ears.
Four days minutes later, the teenaged ticket-taker told me to get up and walked me seven feet to the exit.
Admittedly, I probably don’t look in a mirror as often as I should, which results in showing up to places with toothpaste dribbled down the front of my shirt or mascara only on one eye. Shit happens. But I’m pretty sure that’s because I’m too lazy to look straight ahead and not permanently scarred from a childhood carnival experience.
Poor Annaliese (“Which one is that?” you ask. “THE BLONDE ONE!” I tell you.) clearly doesn’t have the fortitude to move on from hers.*
Arie, as you know, is our Bachelor (yawn) who happens to be a race car driver (yeah, yeah, Arie, we are soooooooooooooo impressed) and isn’t this guy:
He enjoys showing off his race car driver moves any chance he gets. (Yawn again.) Have you ever wondered how the show comes up with all those clever group dates? Of course you have. Here’s what happens: The producers look over the questionnaires filled out by contestants and look for responses to the WHAT ARE YOU MOST TRAUMATIZED BY? (FEEL FREE TO USE AN ADDITIONAL SHEET OF PAPER) question.
Woe is Annaliese, because this group date had the girls participating in a demolition derby which unearthed her very painful past. You see, when Annaliese was a child some asshat (probably a loving adult!) took her to a carnival (PROBABLY TO HAVE FUN!) and let her ride the bumper cars. GET THIS– OTHER CARS HIT HER CAR! What the what? Who does that??? Watching all those derby cars get all creamed and stuff was just too much for Annaliese to bear. So she had to stand on the sidelines, shaking and sobbing and accepting fake, mannequin-armed hugs from the other girls while her sweaty tears plowed through all that expensive BB cream. And if THAT scene weren’t dramatic enough, the producers reached deep into their bag of “cheap ploys to make it clear we are totally giving up this season” satchel to give us a very special reenactment.
You guys, that is not just a reenactment, but it came with creepy carnival music!
You guys, that is not just a reenactment, THAT IS A SEPIA-TONED REENACTMENT.
It’s like our blurry, pixelated faces were there too!
I AM FEELING HER PAIN! It is DEEP IN MY GUT! Oh no wait, that is just laughter.
Arie tried to be empathetic, telling her she could sit this one out if she really needed to, but if she did decide to participate he’d totally protect her. Maybe later he’d even rub his dumb pillow lips all over her sad, wet face.
And now I’m traumatized because I can’t tell if The Bachelor was seriously trying to get us past the dyed roots and into this woman’s head or if they’re all saying, “F.U. Arie! Your season blows! Let’s just trash the place and burn it down!”
Please God let it be the latter! (EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s totally the latter. I’ve seen the latest episode.)
But, wait.
Are they making fun of themselves?
Even the other girls thought this whole trauma thing was ridiculous. I mean being afraid of swimming pigs, sobriety, or yeast infections is totes normal but bumper cars? Come on, girl! Jenna thought she could knock some sense into Annaliese by repeatedly ramming into her when Ol’ Pillow Lips wasn’t looking, which kind of worked. Annaliese seemed rather aggressive for someone who couldn’t handle a little light jostling in a heavily padded carnival toy car, but whatevs. I’m no shrink.
What else happened? Let’s see:
Krystal–my god– is cray cray and super annoying. For someone who claims to make a living making others, “feel their best feels”, she sure likes making other woman feel angry. It’s pretty much guaranteed that whatever words spoken in her drunk, husky baby voice are going to suck. Even though she already had a rose, she stole Arie away TWICE during the cocktail party. One of those times was right out of Bibiana’s vice grip, seconds before she would have choked Arie out. Dammit, Krystal!
Bibiana cracked, threatened to leave, gave up, sat back down, yelled at Krystal, got up to leave, didn’t talk to Arie, finally talked to Arie, took a Valium, drank a bunch of vodka, bit the head off a bat, drank more vodka, and calmly accepted rose #18 out of 18 from Arie.
Angry Anonymous Blonde #4, #12, and #16 were sent home. Angry Anonymous Blonde #4 didn’t even bother saying goodbye to Arie, which made Arie sad. No one gets out of here without a stiff hug and an extra heaping of televised humiliation.
“Hey, sorry about dumping you. I honestly can’t tell all these blonde girls named Lauren apart and it’s hurting my head.”
“I’m not sad about you dumping me. I’m sad that I have to leave all this free alcohol behind.”
I hear that, Angry Anonymous Blonde #4. Surely the girls are pouring one out in your name.
*You can’t make this shit up. It can and will get worse, I promise.
