I Dream of Daytime TV

As I took my first baby steps into the world of a recent grad, one thing I inevitably had to do a lot of was nothing. You know the drill: wake up around noon to watch back-to-back episodes of The Nanny ‘cause Fran Drescher is charming in a "screeching noisily with misplaced good intentions into a catastrophic train wreck" sort of way—and by screeching noisily into a catastrophic train wreck, I mean that The Nanny is followed by Dr. Phil. I might have been unemployed and living with a “roommate” who had the authority to ground me when I didn’t get my chores done, but I had standards, damn it, and the TV went off when Dr. Phil came on.

After my quality time with Fran, it would be time to tweak the resume for the umpteen hundredth go around. Apply for jobs. Wait to hear back. Follow up. Eventually drink myself into oblivion—I mean, uh, to sleep. I mean…I would have a relaxing read and go to bed at a reasonable hour and start it all over again the next day. Yet somehow, with this demanding schedule, I managed to squeeze in a lot of doing nothing. It was a big change after the constant hustle and bustle of the college scene, and it took some getting used to.

At first, I thought a lot about doing nothing; I beat myself up about it. Then, going back to my college roots, I intellectualized it, even read a book about it. Yes, I did some unassigned reading—these were desperate times. Eventually, inspired by my daily dose of the Nanny’s good old-fashioned leopard-printed positivity, I embraced doing nothing. Hell, I even got good at it. Zen about it, I would dare to say—enlightened, even. I had found my calling: to stay at home and [enter bright light and sing songy ahhh voice from the heavens here] do nothing! I would be like a female cross between Seinfeld and the Dalai Lama—hilariously meditative and calmly disinclined to activity. But unfortunately, I didn’t have a major network behind me and Tibet wasn’t supporting my cause, so there was about as much cash flow behind doing nothing as this woman is gonna get in alimony payments.

I needed a way to pursue my calling and make a buck doing it—or not doing it, as the case may be—so as to continue to pay the cable bill and maintain my longstanding relationship with Oprah. (As it is, her endorsing Dr. Phil has put enough strain on things between us—the last thing we need is an unpaid cable bill to add to the tension.) Alas, being a trophy wife involved too much commitment, and being the Nanny was already taken. How was I going to pull off this coup d’laziness?

Finally, after months of self-doubt and indecision, I have found my answer. Oddly enough, it had been staring me in the face the whole time in the form of a haven of stylish and functional Swedish furnishings—Ikea. Why did I not think to live at Ikea professionally!!??

Enter Mark, my new mentor for nothing, who has inspired me to pursue a career doing what I do best—loaf around on couches. I will become a stay-at-home-in-home-furnishing-stores roommate to the general public—just as soon as the cable guy can meet me at the Bed Bath & Beyond in Chelsea. Stop by and we will bask in the joy of nothing, the stuff of daytime TV dreams. Make sure it’s not around 5:00, though—that’s when Reba comes on.