We should ban you from watching MTV." My roommate has come home to find me, once again, a drooling blob on the couch, my dog next to me, watching Sorority Life. Hi, my name is Alex, and I'm addicted to reality shows on MTV. Sure, it may not seem like much to some of you with missing septums, but for me, it's a dirty, shameful secret, and it is one that is ripping my life apart. I consider myself an intelligent, thoughtful person. In middle school, I read Camus for fun. In high school, it was Marx. I sought out knowledge everywhere I could. Of course, I never had a TV in my room until I came to college. Now, I don't read anymore, I don't do my schoolwork, I don't go to class on time, I don't go to work on time. I just sit and watch MTV. My fellow addicts talk about a moment of clarity: that moment when a light from heaven comes down and says, "I don't think she realizes that I am Puck." Or at least that's what my voice said. Of course, my voice also had mud painted all over his face. I have weird voices in my head. One weekend, I realized that I had to catch up on all the reading I hadn't done this semester. Coincidentally, it was the same weekend as the True Life marathon. Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You know about the guy who got calf implants. And the really fat playa with the girlfriend at fat camp and the girl who lost like 5 pounds, even though she wasn't that fat to begin with, and then went to go see this guy she liked who still thought she was fat. I sat on my couch the whole weekend and watched. I'm in this one class, English 155, called "Writing in the Documentary Tradition," and I thought about emailing my professor to tell him about the new documentary form that MTV had invented. But then that one Italian guy who was getting married started screaming at the limo driver who was late, and I ordered pizza. When it was time for the Sorority Life finale, I gathered a few friends in front of the big screen in our house and I screamed at the the sisters who didn't want to initiate the pledges. When Skippy used the little plastic boats to ask the girl he secretly loved out on a date, I laughed with her as she laughed on the inside, and when Skippy cried, I cried a little too. Oh Flora, your fall through the window as your housemates had a threesome in the shower was comedic genius! Oh Stephen and Irene, your fights and slaps and teddy bear throws will captivate me in my old age! Oh Alton and Irulan, why don't you get together for good and make us all happy? Oh Taildaters, your witty pages occupy my afternoons! Oh Sharon and Ozzy and Jack and Kelly and Dill, why can't my family be like yours? Oh Tami and David, I'll watch you tear that sheet off again and again! And one day I know that I will sit down at one of my meetings, and when I look to my left, Ruthie will be there, smiling at me, clean and sober. And it will all be alright.

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