There are many shows about buying houses on HGTV. Fixer Upper is a favorite of mine. There is a show called Flip or Flop, too. Not a fan of that broadcast. The people on that show seem fake. A married couple buys distressed properties, remodels them, and sells them at a profit. The couple is now distressed and separated after a gun-involved incident at their California home. Do they live in Compton? If so, that’s how the streets go, fam. Don’t call them fake. The Glock .45 apparently proves their realness.

And by the way, they call that an incident? HA! I call an occurrence with family and firearms simply… Christmas.

Many of these shows feature married couples buying houses together. Each member of the union vies for the things they want in the house. The guy wants a man cave and the girl wants pretty cabinets and an island in the kitchen that features two sinks and lavish granite countertops. The cabinets are never the right color and the kitchen always needs to be redone. The program invariably goes to commercial as the guy and girl are in some state of limbo, not unlike purgatory, leaving me on the edge of my seat wondering if there will be a den for the husband or a playroom for the brood of little humans that are planned to enter the world. (Taking a departure from the subject under consideration, when did kids get a bedroom and a playroom? What a fantastic scheme the little kickers have going!) After 5 minutes of home improvement and Viagra single pack ads, the turmoil ends in demolition, renovation, and often, in my mind, at least, a question of the sanity of each individual.

One episode of House Hunters had an especially complicated twist. The epic involved a married couple – let’s call them Kevin and Sheila. Now, the premise of House Hunters is simple, or so you would think. There is a real estate agent, and said couple. The merchant shows the joined duo 3 houses, at a great price, mind you, and at the end, the married folks must pick one. But not before the mental stressors of bedrooms and bathrooms and walking 10 steps to the fridge and 20 to take a crap are compared to the ease of urinating and grabbing a beer in the other two houses. This analysis has the thoroughness of a scientist attempting to cure the incurable.

Kevin and Sheila had their demands, which we observed with each nail biting moment of the broadcast. You see, Kevin, he had a hutch that he was completely and emphatically unwilling to part with. I don’t even know what a hutch is? Is it for storing guns or whiskey or beer? Does it hold a TV or power tools? No. No, it most certainly does none of those things.

A hutch is a storage chest built for fine china and Kevin had a precious repository for plates that he absolutely adored. The couple would walk in each house and the first words out of Kevin’s mouth were “Where will my hutch go?” or “My hutch won’t fit here so we cannot live here.”

A hutch, people! A hutch. This seems like the most cockamamy way to choose a house. I didn’t see him inspecting walls or foundations or meeting neighbors. Is the chimney in good shape? What about the HVAC system? Insulation and ventilation and the roof? These sorts of things seem important. Check the sex offender registry for God’s sake and make sure the house can take some rain and wind. The hutch is literally of zero use. Completely inapplicable to the decree of the domicile.

When I was a kid, I would hold my breath until my mother put 3 Oreos on my plate with my dinner. Me and the woman who birthed me would partake in a stare down. Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo. As the carbon dioxide in my body skyrocketed and my brain pleaded its case for oxygen, I would display my demands to my mother with no fear, ignoring the pain in my ribs and the blurred consciousness in my head as I held onto my breath and she held onto the cookies.

This is what Kevin was doing with the hutch.

I don’t know if he got the hutch. I hope he didn’t. I hope the movers dropped it. House Hunters is so stupid.