The other day, I submitted my family to be on reality show. I did it because it wasn’t a show that wanted to be divisive or scandalous and it was something wholesome, you know like UpTV stuff. Sidebar at Mom 2.0 Summit we recorded little video snippets of our life for UpTV and I really hope they choose mine because I shared a really meaningful one… to me anyway. I digress. Submitting to the reality show the other night reminded me of when we (Me, John… and Ro) were cast on a reality show about tattoos.

Storytime!

Once upon a time back in 2013, Rohan was one and Kaya wasn’t conceived yet. An email came through my inbox that said “do you love tattoos and wish you can get one from a famous tattoo artist? click here!” …So I clicked there.

The email asked for photos, a little blurb about us and ages. This is what I submitted.
They emailed me the next day asking to do a Skype. We Skyped and Ro was sitting on my lap the whole time. They said they loved us and wanted us to come into their office. We go to their office a few days later and they give us much more details on the show.

The show was about people who had tattoos they hated and wanted to get new ones to cover them up. Note: I have 2 tattoos I love, and John has ZERO tattoos. Now if you’re a reality-show junkie and may know the show I’m talking about… there are a few with this premise and I am not going to share the name of the show or the network or anything like that. But I’m sure you can guess.

The Casting Process

So we’re at their office to meet with producers and assistant producers and art directors and they say “we’d like to just record you a bit to see how you flow naturally.” Mind you my one year old is exploring the entire office and everyone is falling in love with him I’m trying to keep one eye on him as we record these intros about ourselves. Then they say “you know what let’s do a little test run of us putting a tattoo on you and see if you can vibe about the fake tattoo and how you like to cover it up on camera.”

Now before I continue I need to let you know my husband is a ham.  If you have ever met me and think I am a jokey jokey fun-loving person then if you met John you would feel like you got hit by a Mack truck of gregariousness. When he’s in the mood he will charm the socks off you and sell you like 5 items you don’t need, convert you to atheism, change your political party, and you’ll still be inviting him to your family cruise and Christmas dinner.

So we look at each other side-eye style and figure “Eh why not? Let’s do a little fake thing. If that’s what we need to do to for an audition that’s what we’ll do.” In my mind I’m just thinking free trip to Vegas and free tattoo! ….I know, priorities right?

They drew a bunny with a top hat on my arm and they put a pig with bacon slices on John’s, and we had to talk about it. They gave us scenarios. I was a British royal family junky and since I was so obsessed, I named my bunny Prince Harry and when Prince Harry the bunny died I lost it and got a memorial tattoo of it on my arm.

John’s story was that he just really loves bacon and his wife (read: me) is a vegan and gags when she sees the tattoo, hates it and begs for him to get it removed or covered up. We are both joking around and do the improv and the producers are loving and laughing or whatever and they’re like great we’re going to use this!

We got the gig!

We go home and a few days later they call and say hey we love you we want to get you guys to Vegas to shoot this and would love it if you would use the stories we gave you. We will put real looking (faux) tattoos in the spots where we put the drawing and you guys can just say those stories again and add to it if you want to and then we’ll give you the real tattoos that you wanted. Are you in? I told him I need to think about it and immediately call John at work and told him everything. He was still in! I was a little hesitant. After a long conversation we decided we would go through with it despite the weird lie.

I called The Producers and confirmed all the stuff we were supposed to get, our fees and negotiated for longer time in Las Vegas and we were good to go. They just had to book the first class flights for our lying asses. Then they drop the bomb on me.

The Caveat

They said they wanted Rohan to be on as well and wanted to have him in the show and on camera.

Now at this point Roey was one. He wasn’t yet modeling. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have him in that place or on a reality show, for multiple reasons. Then there was the issue of who’s watching him while we were filming? Who’s watching him while we’re getting our tattoos done? He has never had a babysitter that wasn’t my family. And selfishly… that just now changed my Vegas vacation from fun drunken debauchery to Mommy Duty in a different state. The upside was that Ro would get credit and payment too. (But no tattoo haha)

We Said No …and I regret it!

One of the assistant producer sent over a few flights for us to choose from and John and I talked it over and we’re kind of going back and forth about it but we decided not to. Rohan was the dealbreaker.

Now here’s why I regret it. The filming would have taken place over the July 4th weekend and that was the year that John got into an accident on July 4th on his motorcycle. If we had just done the bloody show we would have been in Vegas at that point and he wouldn’t have gotten hurt and been bedridden for nearly a year.

His leg and foot wouldn’t have been messed up and he wouldn’t be walking with a slight limp now. Every now and then I think about this with so much regret. And then I kind of come to my senses and tell myself no you don’t know what would or wouldn’t have happened…yadda yadda. Not doing the show didn’t make this accident happen. Now, intellectually I get that. I do. But my heart feels like I should’ve left the state over that holiday week… And I would have had a really cool tattoo dope famous tattoo artist… And hopefully some Casino winnings… but alas…

The end.

My girl Africa Miranda was on a reality show, and told me to stay FAR away from them. I most likely will, unless those HGTV twins want to come fix my house up for me. Or I win the lotto and that cutie from the Lottery Dreamhome show helps me pick out a mansion on TV. I wouldn’t mind being a canvas on Ink Master (yes, I love tattoos!) Or compete on Amazing Race or Jeopardy.

What about you?

Would you ever be on a reality TV show?