March 03--I haven't watched ABC's "The Bachelor" in seven years, but I gather from my Twitter feed that the convention hasn't changed much.
Beautiful people leave their ho-hum lives to embark on an amazing journey. Catfights ensue, roses get dealt, fantasy suites get utilized and, naturally, true love blossoms.
Someone gets proposed to and, just like in real life, someone else goes home in a stretch limo.
The show is on its 19th season, so who am I to argue with this formula?
The track record for proposals that result in marriages, however, is slim. Just five couples are still together, according to this piece, with the rest (from both "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette") calling it quits after each season's finale.
The latest bachelor, an Iowa farmer named Chris Soules, is supposed to pick his lifelong soul mate in Monday's season finale. May they live happily ever after.
Meanwhile, I've got a proposal of my own. It's for ABC, and it's a surefire way to help potential couples determine whether they've got the stuff to last a lifetime.
Buy them an old house. In Chicago. In the winter.
Call it "This Old House ... And What It Does To A Relationship."
Stick with the early setup, wherein potential couples go on fantasy dates with helicopters and massages and light rock climbing. Ask the bachelor or bachelorette to select a final match.
Before anyone proposes, move the couple into their new (old) house on the Northwest Side and see how they survive a Chicago winter.
Make sure the pipes freeze. Twice.
Arrange for the chimney to "sweat" in the un-insulated attic, so that condensation leaks down the walls of one of the upstairs bedrooms, rendering the drywall a damp, moldy mess. Twice.
(This is all just off the top of my head, of course.)
Send one half of the couple out of town for work for a few days, at which point the dishwasher should cease to function. Followed by the boiler.
(Fine, this is an exact re-enactment of my life.)
With no heat in the house, the pipes are free to embark on their certain march toward freezing, and the person at home during all of this is free to fantasize about hailing a cab and disappearing without a trace.
Instead, she or he might call upon scores of contractors and handymen and a dad who happens to live nearby. He or she might offer the out-of-town partner hourly updates about the state of the house and the thousands and thousands (and thousands) of dollars being spent to restore it to livable.
When the dust (literal and figurative) clears and the contractors are gone and the floors are mopped and the out-of-town partner returns home: It's decision time.
Are they happy to see each other? Are they grateful for each other? Are they able, despite being terrifyingly broke and crushingly exhausted, able to make each other laugh? Do they both go in for the hug?
If not: No rose. No ring. No stuff to last a lifetime.
If so: They should grab each other's hand and never let go. Life is going to be a wild, expensive, unpredictable ride. And they just found the best partner in the world to join them.
hstevens@tribpub.com
