Amazing A-Hole

I had huge intentions to get-up early and devote hundreds of words dressing down The Amazing Race's A-Hole Dad. Instead, I got just a little under 5 hours of sleep with a teething 1-yr-old and a restless 3-yr-old.

Why were you awake, you ask? Couldn't your wife get up and take care of the kids and isn't that a wife's duty? You may also be asking if I could have plugged my ears, ignored the crying, and just rolled over and slept like a baby.

I'm sure some guys can do it. Me? Not so much. Whether I'm actually getting up and tending to night terrors, a crying baby, a wet bed, or random other catastrophes or whether the wifey does ...I don't "sleep through it."

But wait, there's more.

Not sure why I'm sharing this, but amidst the sporadic sleep, I had a nightmare, to boot. I dreamed I built a tree house two stories in the air and my 3-year-old fell out of it. So, not only was I not sleeping, I was dreaming of my kid getting violently injured. Guess what? When you wake from a dream like that you don't exactly roll over, get all snuggly with the missus, and doze right back to sleep.

If I was functioning with even the bare minimum 6-hours of sleep, I might've told you that we're on the eve of seeing a bigger a-hole than even that guy from a few seasons ago who berated his wife, pushed her, and thought he was a real hot shot. Yes. We have a Dad who is a coward, who raised his daughter to be a coward, and he's mean. Did he say, "you need to lose some weight?" Yes. He did. Did he fail to make a decision and then tell his daughter she needs to be more decisive? Oh, yes. He did. Did he make such an ass of himself that he stole the entire hour and I cannot even remember much else that happened in the entire hour-long show? Oh, yes. A-Hole Dad ....ding, ding, ding, ding ...you did it all.

I love when pessimists tell you they are realists (read: I hate it). What it really means is that they are pessimists in denial. A pessimist, asshole Dad. Can it get worse? How 'bout throwing in unapologetic? And throw in a self-proclamation of "perfectionism." And annoying, not-funny singing. Or lecturing strangers on etiquette. The camera men and the producers must've screamed with delight when they found themselves able to juxtapose footage of A-Hole Dad dressing down Grandson-Guy for his rudeness and then A-Hole Dad himself spent the better part of a day-and-a-half treating his daughter like a second class citizen.

A-Hole Dad Lesson 1: Be kind to strangers. Trash your family.

I hope the rest of the season will bring us many more li'l bits of a A-Hole fatherly advice that I can take down and turn into one of those tiny little books you see at Hallmark.

The old man wallowing in the mud was awesome. Apparently his bikini briefs were preventing him from pole-vaulting the tiny crick. He alluded to the fact he got nude. Vixen (or whatever the Goth Guy's name is) was annoying. A-Hole-Cheating Boyfriend couldn't tie knots. Big Lebowski and his chick used both "stoked" and "bitchin'" in this episode. And the lesbian, Christian, married, cloned, ministers were booted. I don't wanna make fun, because I think the taller, more masculine of the two might be hypoglycemic and simply couldn't focus on the sticker-finding task. Oh, well. It turned out they had a great shtick but very little personality.

Also, as a guy who's sent two tapes to The Amazing Race trying to get on the show, I wonder if A-Hole Dad's daughter shot video footage of her Dad just being a royal dick and sent it in. Knowing that if anyone could see his obnoxious behavior they'd have to put him on TV. If that's the case ...honey ...without me knowing ...please start shooting secret video of me and send it into CBS. I think when CBS sees me bordering on complete helplessness and uselessness, they'll wanna put me on TV.