but at least you're not a janitor with a mullet

I haven't even been posting about Survivor lately, because I'm pretty sure that everyone but maybe Good Lauren skips them. Lord knows my other Survivor Buddy, Bruckner, hasn't been around these parts in ages. I am absolutely compelled to post about the finale of Survivor: China, however, and I ask that you bear with me even if you don't watch the show. Because this commentary has to do with larger social problems.

One of these problems is mullets. The year is 2007, almost 2008, and people should not wear mullets anymore. Some people do wear mullets, and my research findings indicate that typically these people are involved with the Race Car fan base, or perhaps the 80s Rock fan base. Or maybe they just haven't watched television since 1989. And no one in their family, friend, or hairdresser set has had the heart, courage, or sense of social responsibility to tell them it is wrong to still wear a mullet.

If you do wear an unironic mullet, and are trying to defend said mullet on national television to the surprisingly (but delightfully) snarky reality show host, you should know that the following argument, while superficially valid, does not actually make sense: I am a lunch lady. We are not allowed to wear our hair long, so I keep it short. But I am also a woman and still want to feel feminine for my husband. So I keep it long in the back.

Here is the logical problem with this argument: You just said you were not allowed, as a lunch lady, to keep your hair long. But yet, you do, in fact keep your hair long. In the back. And you wear it in a ponytail. But you could grow all of your hair out, let the mullet die, and then pull all of your hair back into a ponytail. And therefore feel feminine, but not have a mullet.

I don't mean to sound so scathing toward Denise, I really don't. I'm sure she's a nice lady, a hard worker, a good mom, a loving wife. I know she was the proverbial Last Kid Picked on the Playground while growing up, and my Inner Dork identifies. I'm going to sound like a complete and utter snob here as I continue, but again, bear with me.

The way Denise's life was portrayed on last night's episodes of Survivor literally made me want to hold the couch pillow over my face and end it all. Denise is a lunch lady, who reportedly makes $7 an hour. Except that, since her stint on Survivor, she's not even a lunch lady anymore. When she got back to work, the administration informed her that her newfound popularity was a distraction to the kids at her school, and so they were going to have to go ahead and yeah, ask her to be the janitor instead. And in the evening, rather than the daytime, so she no longer can spend time with her family at night, go to her kids' field hockey games, things like that. Denise placed fourth on S:C, therefore having no chance to win the million dollars at the final tribal council, and (understandably, I suppose) looked completely put out by her vote-off. She claimed that if she were in the Final Three with Courtney and Amanda, then she absolutely would have one. That may be true... the point is really moot.

Anyway, Todd was in the Final Three with Courtney and Amanda, gave by far the best, most admirably unapologetic answers to the jury, and won the million dollars. Amanda Doe Eyes bombed her appeal, as far as I'm concerned. And Courtney, of whom I have not been a fan through most of this season, proved to be quite entertaining with her snarky commentary. In the last episode, during a discussion with Todd re: who it would be best for Amanda to take to the finals with her, Courtney snarked that Amanda shouldn't pick Denise just because she feels sorry for her. Because Survivor is not welfare. And one should not win the million dollars just because she sucks at life. Burn! The comment was really pretty mean and it's totally presumptuous to say that Denise sucks at life... and yet.

This all is not to say that one "sucks at life" if she is a lunch lady, or a janitor, or makes $7 an hour. Not at all; that's actually a disgusting suggestion. But, what so, so bothered me about Denise last night was the way she played the Woe is Me Card, and so heavy-handedly. At first it was strategic, in her last-ditch appeal to Amanda to keep her around in the game. That move was somewhat respectable, because hey, if it gets you the mil, then you outwitted the fool who fell for your sad song. But then Denise proceeded to become, in the words of James (LOVE James, totally hope he is in the next season, which will be Survivor's answer to the RW:RR Challenge's Fresh Meat edition), a Bitter Betty. And you should just not become a Bitter Betty in Survivor because it's a game. And you should definitely not take your Bitter Bettyness to the next level and recount with a trembling lip on national television that you've been downgraded from a lunch lady to a janitor, as though you've just lost your house in a hurricane. The whole audience murmured in sympathy; meanwhile, J.Lo and I brought out the bottle of bleach and select mixers for cocktails. Then, Mark Burnett called into the show and Jeff Probst relayed his message that Denise and her fam would be given $50K as a token to get their life on track, just because. (She sucks at life.) Denise smiled gratefully, I died a little inside, and J.Lo said, "My God, she is so living La Vida Lunch Lady."

Not that it wasn't nice thing for Mark Burnett to do, and I genuinely hope that Denise and her family use that money wisely--that she'll feel like she has the freedom now to turn down jobs that apparently belittle her existence. Because, hell... I certainly know that it can be tough to find a job that pays decently and involves work you can live with, much less enjoy. But when you're trying to top a job that pays dirt, that is the wrong shift, that entails cleaning up the vomit of strangers' children with sawdust, AND, above all, is an outright demotion from your former job, which you seemed to enjoy? It seems like that might not be so hard. And that maybe you could have shown yourself the amount of respect it takes to make the choice and say NO, I can do better, thanks. You know, before you threw yourself a gratuitous pity party on national television.

I'm such an asshole. But still. I expected better from Denise and her mullet.