Home Depot, I'm Not.

<Originally posted elsewhere on January 30th, 2009>


I've now watched two episodes of Tool Academy.  (Let me reiterate that this is yet another ploy to prod along my cardio health along with a desire to feel marginally productive while actively engaging in such trash.  We won't talk about the self loathing that occurs when I watch The Real World and Sober House on the...*gasp*.. couch.) 

The word "tool" has been bandied about for some time and I am grateful to VH1 for earnestly investigating this pressing matter and giving some sort of definition to this socially significant word. 

Thanks to Tool Academy, I have learned... 

1) Tools often refer to themselves in the third person.  For example, when one of the tools was confronted with infidelity, his response was "That's how Celebrity rolls and you're gonna hafta get used to it." 

2) Tools are motivated by shiny things and cash.  Just after Celebrity-tool told his teary girlfriend that she would need to deal with his "addiction" (to flirting, tongue-wagging and boning anything that looks sideways at him - really, he almost made it sound altruistic), he nodded his head solemnly and agreed that he needed to change.  Methinks a fellow tool kicked the back of his chair and whispered "Bro-dog, there's a hundo grand at stake.  Fake it, yo!"

3) Tools are willing to be called tools AND openly call themselves tools because of the cash prize.  I suppose everyone has their price although I suspect a little bit of trickery and high school level math could have snagged these bozos for the cost of a bottle of Dom.  


4) Tools are masters at reeling in hot chicks with wicked self esteem issues.  This is evidenced by the sheer amount of bugfuck stupidity that has surfaced on the show on top of the mountains of mascara-stained kleenex courtesy of the skirts du jour.  (No woman with an ounce of dignity would step foot into a Mickey D's with these asshats let alone allow themselves to be paraded on TV for the clueless morons that it appears they actually are.) 

5) Despite the moniker, tools are pretty good at adapting to the situation and knowing their lines.  When Spikey-Tool was busted for having two girlfriends (who discovered each other during group therapy), he tearfully bowed his head and moaned about how he needed the help to change.  Later, while in the tool-shed with the others, he smirked and bragged about how he had had two hot girlfriends. 

6) Tools name themselves and not often all that well.  There's Celebrity, which really is just so played - was that the best he could do? (Clearly, yes.)  And then there's Matsuflex.  Is that an ab machine?  A vegetable chopper?  This tool is one Vince-and-camera-guy short of an infomercial. 

7) Tools know when to turn on the charm.  Twice now, a tool has been eliminated from the show for apparently being unfixable, cried to his waiting girlfriend who agreed to stay with them and then they drove off into the sunset in a limo with a license plate that reads "TOOL 9".  Irony's a bitch.  


8) Given the tendency of tools to touch, grunt and hit each other, I suspect there's a little bit of latent homosexuality in each and every one.  (Extraordinarly displays of maleness indicate this as well.  Like throwing an armchair because his woman was trying to "de-masculate" him so he needed to throw something and she was going to like it.  Hello overcompensation, it's nice to meet you.)

As always, I'm appreciative of my reality TV education because I learn so much about the world and my faith in humanity is further eroded (which is okay because that means more toys for me in the end). 

However, I'm onto VH1.  I've figured out their master plan and I have to say, it's brilliant.  A winner from the The Pick-up Artist is going to snort one too many boa feathers and end up a bonafide tool.  He'll then enroll in Tool Academy where he learns he needs to rein in his awesomeness so he can comingle with the common folk.  He'll win Tool Academy, take the 100G's to get gender reassignment surgery and end up yanking out Bret Michael's European hair extensions during a particularly rowdy blow-and-pet session. 

Didn't see that coming, did ya?