Conversations Had During The Season Premiere Of The Amazing Race

1.) ME: Oh my god, they actually got the “foreigners don’t have maps” beauty pageant girl to be on this show.
FLAPJACKS: They are sending her around the world! This is either the best joke ever or the cruelest prank ever. Possibly both.
ME: You know, given that they are “dating models,” it’s entirely possible that CBS cast them by accident.
FLAPJACKS: You mean they were just trying to fulfill the “dating hot couple who want to be actors” quota for this season, and then when they looked at their options they saw that they got the beauty queen who was on Youtube?
ME: Exactly.
FLAPJACKS: That seems unlikely.
ME: Ah, but consider: we both enjoy this show and it is entering its sixteenth season. Is that not unlikely?
FLAPJACKS: I just consider it further proof that the universe thinks I’m important.

2.) FLAPJACKS: Is there really such a thing as a world title in rodeo-ing?
ME: Why wouldn’t there be?
FLAPJACKS: Wouldn’t that be kind of like the World Series, in that with the exception of the Toronto Blue Jays, there aren’t any non-American teams? Who outside the United States does rodeo-ing?
ME: They have cowboys in Australia.
FLAPJACKS: Yes, but the Australian cowboys are all busy competing at Learning The Secrets Of Wise Aboriginal Elders and Sleeping With The Repressed Rich English Ladies and Having The Biggest Knife. It’s entirely a different set of skills. I bet they come to America for the world championships and then get surprised when they find out that they have to rope a steer really fast.
ME: You have got to stop watching that Baz Luhrmann film over and over again.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t gotta do nothing.

3.) ME: Okay, so this 71-year-old granny who has done fifteen triathlons is this season’s official “make you feel worse about yourself” entrant.
FLAPJACKS: That’s fifteen times as many triathlons as I have done!
ME: You’ve never done a triathlon.
FLAPJACKS: I watched the one you did. I figure that counts.
ME: That was only a starter triathlon.
FLAPJACKS: It counts.
ME: Wait, shouldn’t I be the one arguing that it counts and you discounting my near-death experience in running it?
FLAPJACKS: It’s a funny old world.

4.) ME: “Joe is very confrontational. He says things that might piss people off.”
FLAPJACKS: “Joe is this season’s Official Asshole.”
ME: “HATE HIM! HAAAAATE HIM! Write letters expressing your hate! Our inevitable divorce will come that much quicker if you do it! It’s like ripping off a spiritual Band-Aid!”

5.) ME: And Phil says this will be the most difficult Race ever!
FLAPJACKS: Oh no! They have to take public transportation to the airport! That’s worse than the annual India leg of the Race!
ME: I wonder if anybody will break down crying because they can’t figure out how to use transfers.
FLAPJACKS: And they’re all so shocked. “Who takes the bus in L.A.?”
ME: And the team of black ladies answers that for us by saying out loud “look, a black person” and asking them.

6.) FLAPJACKS: I note that the cowboys have incorrectly changed their money to Brazilian funds when they are in fact going to Chile.
ME: Maybe they just missed every other team talking about how excited they were to go to Chile. Or, in Team Big Brother’s case, China.
FLAPJACKS: Well, in the cowboys’ defense, those are all not Wyoming or whatever the fuck they are from.
ME: “Aw shucks our town is so small we don’t got no atlases like you city folk do.”
FLAPJACKS: “Our town library is so small it only has two books and Walter won’t let you take ‘em out on account of what happened in 1957. We don’t talk about that much.”
ME: “Got a McDonald’s, though! So we’re definitely comin’ along in the world. Nobody can say the future is leavin’ Buttlick, Whereverthefuck behind, no sirree bob.”
FLAPJACKS: Oh, I love how they decide to sheepishly admit it. “Yeah, see, the closest thing the airport in LA had to Chilean money was Brazilian money.”
ME: I believe that’s the Weasel school of admitting error. “See, it wasn’t our fault we fucked up. It was the airport’s fault.”

7.) FLAPJACKS: “Heidi does have some fear of heights, so I took on that challenge. Because she is a chicken. And I am a condescending asshole.”
ME: Maybe we should wait a little longer to start hating him?
FLAPJACKS: No. If there is one thing about this show that is predictable, it is that the Designated Asshole always makes himself obvious early on.

8.) FLAPJACKS: Wait, the city of Valparaiso pays for houses to be painted so they can be pretty? Why can’t we get that here?
ME: You live in a large North American city. Half of the painting budget would go to unions and the other half would go to a PR fund to mollify people who pointlessly scream about unions.
FLAPJACKS: Which leaves no money for the paint.
ME: No, you take care of that with a special bond issue.
FLAPJACKS: So then the houses get painted?
ME: They would, except that in the next municipal election the anti-paint candidate gets elected, and he says “we should spend that money on police officers” and the money pays for one additional police officer over the next five years. He is shot and killed in the line of duty in his third year.
FLAPJACKS: That’s sad.
ME: And drab.

9.) FLAPJACKS: Wait, the prize trip for the first round is Vancouver? Wow. That’s underwhelming.
ME: Well, they do get to go whale-watching and bobsledding and – no, never mind. You’re right. That’s a sucky prize.
FLAPJACKS: How much lamer can the trip prizes get than that?
ME: “You’ve won a trip for two to beautiful Columbus, Ohio!”
FLAPJACKS: “You’ve won a trip for two to Detroit, Michigan!”
ME: That would at least be exciting. Albeit probably not in the good way.

10.) FLAPJACKS: I knew it! I knew this day would come! People doing a challenge on the Amazing Race are just interfering with people’s everyday lives and because they don’t speak the local language nobody can make them understand that they need to fuck off.
ME: Yes, this is pretty much the best day ever. And it wasn’t the Big Brother team or the Teen South Carolina team or anybody you’d expect to screw up. It was just the father/daughter team, who are like the vanilla ice cream of Amazing Racers.
FLAPJACKS: And they just keep going and going, painting the inside of this totally unrelated house. At some point, you’d think the people staring at you incredulously would start to kick in. But no.

11.) ME: And it turns out that arguably the least fit team on the Race gets eliminated. Which is not a shock.
FLAPJACKS: In fairness, non-athletic teams have gone quite a long way before on the Race.
ME: Not many of them, though. Being in at least reasonable shape seems like it might be an advantage in something which is technically supposed to be a “race.”
FLAPJACKS: When they let Canadians compete I will totally make you exercise.
ME: Ahem. I have run a starter triathlon and I swim every day. You play Halo.
FLAPJACKS: That means that I have elite teabagging skills that will make me very successful in the Race.