I’ve had a few guilty pleasures in my lifetime. Nothing outrageous, but I wouldn’t go around bragging about it. Like sometimes I like to drink a little more wine than I should, just to get that nice warm buzz in my head that makes me forget everything else. I can’t do it often, in fact it’s a pretty rare occurrence now because my stomach doesn’t handle the wine well any more. I used to love to finish off a nice box of Junior Mints! I love them, but again my stomach doesn’t cooperate with my desires, so I have had to cut back. In fact I can’t eat any of the things I used to overindulge in, in the privacy of my home, all thanks to aging and my stomach. But, I have acquired a new guilty pleasure the last 10 months and it doesn’t upset my stomach at all.
My new guilty pleasure is watching Mob Wives, the VH1 reality show. The women curse like drunken sailors, sometimes worse. They have ongoing arguments. The have real fights with actual hair pulling, down on the floor kicking and screaming. They are related to criminals, mobsters, murderers, drug dealers you name it. I can’t relate at all to their lifestyle. I never knew anyone involved in the mob, however, my mother could have given them a good run for their money when it comes to cursing.
They started out with four mob wives in season one and added two more to season two. They all know each other in real life and their history spills into the show. The drama sucked me in like a Hoover vacuum sucks up crumbs! You may or may not know the women on the show, but one of them is Karen Gravano, the daughter of Sammy “The Bull” Gravano. Sammy Gravano was the underboss of John Gotti. He was involved in 19 murders, cooperated with the FBI and turned on Gotti for a plea deal of 5 years. While filming season one of Mob Wives, Karen wrote a book called Mob Daughter, which was released on February 14th and in a week was on the New York Times Best Sellers List. Why am I writing about all this? Well, because of my guilty pleasure of watching the show, I “liked” a couple of facebook pages. On one page they were having a contest to win an autographed copy of Karen’s new book. All I had to do was type in my name to enter, so I did. Yesterday I was informed that I was a winner! Can you believe that? It’s funny to me how so many things have come out of my passion for blogging and now my guilty pleasures are also paying off!
I can’t help it if I find Mob Wives entertaining. The drama is over the top at times. But even though I can’t relate to the lifestyle, the language, the violence, and the crimes, I can related to their Italian ethnic culture. I hear about how they speak of their parents and watch how they raise and protect their children. I see the big pot of Sunday sauce on the stove. They all hug and kiss hello. There is a strong Italian presence that almost makes me feel at home. It wasn’t a show I expected to keep watching. I signed on to mob wives when there was all the media hype about it and Dr. Phil was busy running his housewives off the track and off the air. I was just looking for new replacement “housewives” and got more than I bargained for plus a new autographed book!
If you haven’t seen the show, you might want to try it. It’s not for everyone, but it is for me. I’m entitled to at least one guilty pleasure that my stomach can’t ruin for me and I finally found one.
