Then it hit me. That awful, sinking feeling- like someone had pulled the bathtub plug in my heart and the last of the water had just been sucked down the drain. And the next thought,

“Oh god. Now what?”

An unnecessary reflection on Family Feud.

This is for you, Richard Dawson
He shmoozed his way down the line of squawking Italian women, planting kisses on each of them. I bet his lips tasted like cigarettes. Did Dawson ever worry about picking up diseases? Did he ever cringe before puckering up to a plump, sweaty housewife? His particular brand of sarcasm and droll English accent sent them to shivering in their pumps. Their husbands, mustachioed men in pastel shirts, always looked vaguely uncomfortable at the sight of their wives so obviously enraptured with the enigmatic game show host, while wrestling with their own sense of being accent-less and inferior. Despite all of that, you’ve got to hand it to him in the romance department. Richard stopped kissing his female contestants during the mid-70s in an act of commitment to his wife. That’s character.