There's No Place Like Run's House

Today I turn thirty-seven (Happy Birthday to me!). Am I too old to petition for Rev Run to adopt me? I'm fairly photogenic--it's not like I'd muck up the family portrait. Sure, I'm a pasty, white, Jewish girl, but it could be like Diff'rent Strokes, new-millennium style (I'd even consider converting! It's not like I was ever bat mitzvahed...).

About three months ago, I was, as usual, on my ass watching TV. It was a Friday night and Stu was out and I was home alone when I stumbled upon my first episode of Run's House. MTV was running a mini-marathon (Is there anything better than the mini-marathon? They turn shows into Lays potato chips. You can never watch just one.) and at first I rolled my eyes, exasperated by another show jumping on the bandwagon of family reality programming. But I quickly realized this was the best family show EVER. It even made me reconsider my life long dream of being a Brady. I kid you not.

That night I watched about six episodes in a row and spent the next week asking everyone I knew if they'd seen this masterpiece. Not a single soul had been to Run's House. Every time I turned on the television, I desperately searched for an airing. I checked the TIVO for upcoming episodes. Nothing. No one had seen it and it was apparently never to be seen again. The heaven of the Rev's house seemed to exist only in my imagination.

But then today, of all days, my birthday, on which I have been quite ill, bedridden since Friday night, so I gotta tell ya it hasn't been the best birthday weekend, the Rev returned to me! Yes, they were all back on my screen: Rev Run, Justine, Vanessa, Angela, JoJo, Diggie and Russy. And it wasn't just one episode. No, the programming gods smiled down upon me and for my birthday they gave me FIVE HOURS of Run's House as the most glorious present ever. Clear out the pool house, Simmonses (which they did in one episode, The Rev demanding that Justine ditch all of her saved issues of Oprah Magazine, insisting that she didn't need to keep them since the same photo appeared on the cover of each one), I'm moving in!

In one of the thousand episodes I watched today, Angela begins an internship at Baby Phat (owned by her aunt, Kimora Lee Simmons, causing Vanessa to earnestly shout out, "hey, nepotism is alive and well!"). She has a rough first day, as all interns do, and when she returns to her lush suburban home, dad senses her disappointment. He says to her, "If that were me, I would have outworked every intern there. I would have walked in an intern and walked out the owner."

Yes, he would have. And come to think of it, so would have my father. Whenever my dad dropped me off at school, he used to say, "knock 'em dead and give 'em hell!" It was his battle cry and he gave a lot of hell to a lot of people. Clearly, so does Rev Run. Perhaps that's why I want to be his adoptive daughter. Not only would I get the much-missed motivational nudge I used to get from my father, but more than that, The Rev would probably fill the spiritual void I have in my life due to the lack of a religious upbringing. I told you I was never batmitzvahed, and MAN, I am a sucker for the Blackberry mini-sermons The Rev gives from his bubble bath every morning. If you've never seen the show and have no idea what I'm talking about, well, you've got to see it to believe it and to be moved to live the most fulfilling life you possibly can cuz that's what the Rev's preaching and I am in the front row of the choir!

And, with all the rap and hip-hop, can you imagine how much dancing I would do? My dad could cut a rug, but he never quite made it past the bossa nova.

Rev, get the lawyers and the adoption papers ready! I'm coming home...to RUN'S HOUSE!