Phoebe Kate

For weeks, I’ve been noticing headlines on news websites about two people named Jon and Kate.  I didn’t read the stories.  Since I’d never heard of them before, I assumed they were Generation Y actors whose movies appeal to the 25-and-under crowd. 

I vaguely wondered why the press hadn’t concocted a cute name for them, like Brangelina and Tomkat.  Admittedly, there’s not much you can do with one-syllable names, but they could be KaJon.  But perhaps they weren’t famous enough for that, I concluded.

It’s just as well nobody bothered to combine their names, because now the headlines tell us these two are getting divorced — and the whole world apparently cares a very great deal about it.  It reminds me of the hoopla that went on when Liz Taylor and Richard Burton had an affair, ditched their current spouses and got married and divorced not once but twice back in the 70s. 

Anyway, today I finally decided to find out who Kate and Jon are and why they merit this moment-to-moment coverage of their lives.  After all, maybe these are people I should care about, too.

Not.

I confess to being utterly bewildered by the whole thing.  What is noteworthy or even remotely interesting about the daily lives of a couple with eight small children?  Making meals, taking the puppy to the vet, going to the dentist and the doctor, having a yard sale, moving to a new house, doing backyard camp-outs and birthday parties, potty-training toddlers — this is a tiresome to-do list and an Excedrin headache, not entertainment.    

Who’s watching this show?  Childless people who grew up in an orphanage and have no friends with children?  Aliens from planets very different than ours who want to learn about Terran culture before they abduct us?  I only hope they’ll take the Gosselin family very soon and save the world from the upcoming episodes of “Kate & 8 Minus 1.” 

–phoebe kate