"Oprah, Where's My Kitchen?"

I love Oprah Winfrey.  She's smart, well-spoken, funny, and has a kind heart.  Although I don't watch her every day, those times when I do I find the show quite interesting and entertaining.  I do have one problem with Oprah and that is her "screening process" for those oh so wished for home re-models that she occasionally sponsors.  Most irritating are those kitchen re-models.  I have watched many of those "before and after" shows and I can barely sit still in my battered old recliner as I watch some yahoo proclaim that they have the ugliest kitchen in America. 

Not true.  These supposedly "ugliest kitchens" do not hold a pot holder to mine.  I live in a house built in 1960 and no where is this more evident than in the kitchen.  How bad is it?  Well, first, you've really got to watch re-runs of The Brady Bunch to get an idea of the decor; then you have to imagine that Brady Bunch kitchen 50 years later.  My kitchen counter tile is kind of a yellowish-brown tone, made more hideous by years of coffee stain and food sediments which have settled nicely into the grouting.  The "decorative" back splash tiles have imprints of quaint little coffee pots that were the rage during the Eisenhower administration.  The stove top is ancient and was made by a company that went out of business fifty years ago.  A few years ago I was so desperate for an upgrade I bought a wall oven to replace the 1960's model.  The "new" model was manufactured when Nixon was directing break-ins at the Watergate.

But folks, it is the kitchen cabinets that bring this kitchen to the ultimate hideousness.  They are the original 50's cabinets that probably nicely accommodated a 1960's household where the state of the art appliance was a four slice toaster.  When I first moved into this house I made a futile attempt to stain the greased stained maple cabinets.  I scrubbed and sanded and tried mightily to apply an even coat of cherry stain to the old wooden cabinets.  Alas, being the oaf I am, the stain is splotched and uneven and is not much unlike those young men you see walking around with dual-toned brown and blond-frosted hair tones.  Really ugly.  The cabinet doors do not close, the door clips having long ago given up the ghost.  So the cabinet doors stand half-open at all times, inviting the kitchen visitor to see stained oil cloth kitchen shelving. 

Tried my hand at painting too!  I painted the kitchen walls yellow to match the counter top tile.  Ugh!  My kitchen lighting is a five-foot florescent light fixture that glows brightly and serves to highlight the quiet desperation that is my kitchen. 

Every time I walk into my kitchen (on shit-brown linoleum floor tiles) I am discouraged and disgusted.

So, Oprah, when you choose those folks who are "suffering" under the antiquity of 90's style maple cabinets and simply  must  replace that ten year old tile floor, you have badly chosen. 

Oprah, can you even imagine the stark contrast of MY "before and after" kitchen re-model?  Choose ME and my kitchen and win the praise of home re-modelers everywhere!  Oprah, you owe me a new kitchen! 

Gotta go now....I think I hear my dishwasher dribbling.