One night, when I lived in Clairemont, horror came in through the front door. I was cooking chicken in the tiny old oven in the dilapidated kitchen of my ancient apartment. While cooking, I divided my time between talking on the phone to my girlfriend and watching the leprechaun on television. In the oven, my glass baking dish sat filled with bubbling chicken, and atop the pinkish meat were curled spindly rings of a red onion. On the phone, I told Diane how my face had flushed red and my eyes watered each time I checked my cooking dinner and asked her how long it should take. My phone beeped.

"Hang on, someone's calling," I said into the little silver plastic device. "Oh, no one's calling. It's the battery. It's about to die."

"Half an hour," she told me.

"Half hour!" I protested. "My house is going to be a hundred degrees by then, and my eyes are going to pop out from the onions." Beep, went my phone.

We said our goodbyes and I went about opening all the windows and the front door. I pulled the hot dish out and poked at the chicken with a fork to test the color of the juice. Still bloody. I snatched the sleek little body of my phone from the yellow tile counter and walked it into my bedroom to put it on its cradle charger. I had no idea that the fright of my life was stealing in through the front door.

My dinner was nearly done, and the oven door swung and clanged closed.

On the television, the leprechaun crept from an open closet to hide beneath a desk so he could spring out and kill again. I glanced down my hallway and saw a small eye peeking around the corner at me about six inches above the floor.

I live alone. Nothing else living and with an eye should be in this apartment right now, I thought. The eye twitched. My phone was in my bedroom, behind the eye, so I couldn't call for assistance. The eye was in the hallway to my front door, so screaming out into the night wasn't an option.

I bolted from my chair and grabbed a fork from the stovetop and charged into my hallway. "GO AWAY, LEPRECHAUN!" I screamed and dove through the air at the menacing eye. The eye blinked and shot out of the doorway to my bedroom and into the main hall. I saw full well the furry body and long tail of my terror.

A thin black cat, greeted by the warm smell of chicken, must've followed me in from the front yard. He skittered out the front door, chased away by a crying lunatic bearing a silver fork.

WHAT I WILL AND WON'T WATCH THIS WEEK

Thursday, August 10

The Flavor of Love

VH1 2:00 p.m. This is my new favorite show. Flava Flav does pretty much exactly what I would do if I were very rich. He womanizes. Rides around in limousines. And always wears a Viking helmet. God keeps me poor because he knows nobody wants to see me in a tablecloth cape and a pair of choo-choo underpants.

Gene Simmons: Family Jewels

AETV 11:00 p.m. I want to dress Gene Simmons in a nine-dollar blue button-down shirt and a pair of khaki carpenter pants, sit him down at my Ikea desk, and make him write, "It's just a band. I'm not that important," 1000 times on plain binder paper with a regular ballpoint pen.

Friday, August 11

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)

FAM 7:00 p.m. As with most movie titles, my mind goes berserk at the possibility for pornographic rearrangement. Like, when I first saw American Beauty, I thought the film American Booty couldn't be too far behind. For this one, "Harry" can be "Hairy" and "Potter" can be, well... let's not be too literal here. And the converted version of "Chamber of Secrets" is too filthy to mention, far too filthy. Oh, my stars and garters, you disgusting little things, you.

Saturday, August 12

Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)

TCM 9:00 a.m. I have a theory that any sport is just an elaborate ritual to get a hug. Maybe that's why I was never invited back to wrestling camp after that one time. I thought it was because I wore a beret to all my matches and baked cupcakes for my opponents. Although, I suppose none of that really helped.

Chasing Farrah

TV LAND 11:30 a.m. Farrah should open her own home-improvement store and call it "Farrah's Kitchen and Bath." (You thought I was going to make a crack about Fawcett's Faucets, didn't you? You dirty ass, what do you think I'm doing here? I'm trying to run a business consulting firm for the formerly beautiful, and you think I sit around here all day making puns about this poor strumpet's last name? I can't stand you.)

Sunday, August 13

On the Road With 16 Children

DHC 10:00 p.m. I'd shoot myself before I got to Temecula.

Monday, August 14

Girlfriend Getaways

QVC 11:00 p.m. I looked. This show is about luggage. I find that appropriate, as I imagine any man watching QVC at 11 o'clock on a Monday night can deflate his "girlfriend" and fit her into a carry-on. You know what I mean. WINK!

Tuesday, August 15

Oil, Sweat, and Rigs

DSC 11:00 p.m. Clint Eastwood is in. Now all I have to do is resurrect the ghost of Lee Marvin so I can film Paint Your Wagon II: This Time It's on an Oil Rig. Oh, there'll be sweat, work gloves, and hard helmets, but the real story is that these men love to sing and dance. ALL ABOARD! We're drilling for PIZZAZZ!

Wednesday, August 16

WWE Diva Special: The Sexiest Woman on Television

USA 10:00 p.m. I dare say, the sexiest woman on television is not one of these man-beasts who looks as if she was dragged out of the Paleolithic era and shaved only this morning.

Thursday, August 17

Softball 360

CA4SD 10:30 p.m. Nobody Gives a Crap 217 and 3/4s.