When Celebrities Taunt

There are many things in my life for which I am enormously grateful. Near (if not at) the top of the list are the amazing friends I have made throughout the course of my life. When I went to college, I was lucky enough to fall in with a group of people who shared my sensibilities in many ways. They got my twisted humor and shared my sense of irony like no one before.

What follows is an example of that twisted humor. Please know that what I'm about to share may sound a bit, well, wrong, but know that for us, our humor often stems from a dark but good-hearted place. Really. I swear!

Okay....

A couple years ago, celebrities were seriously dropping like flies. Every time you turned on the news, we'd lost another legend. It was the summer we lost Michael, Farrah, Ed -- a sad time particularly for those of us for whom the arts are such a vital part of our existence. My friends and I grieved these losses. We did. And then the jokes started flying. A recurring joke involved wondering who would be next. This became a sort of, well, death pool as each of us picked a celebrity that we bet would die next. I, being the ever savvy one who reads Entertainment Weekly the way some people read the Wall Street Journal, picked Zsa Zsa Gabor. I'd read an article that she was having some pretty serious health issues, so I essentially gambled with a little "insider trading" and put my proverbial money on her.

Time went on. Zsa Zsa lived. And lived. AND LIVED. Every time she was admitted to the hospital, I would get an excited message from a friend about my victory being at hand. And every time, she emerged. Granted, she often emerged in worse condition, maybe missing a limb, but she emerged. It was like she was taunting me. Celebrities died around her, but Zsa Zsa persevered like some sort of deteriorating Hungarian vampire. Nothing seemed to stop her.

(Again, please note that this is intended as irony. I do not really WISH for this poor woman to die. I don't!)

Yesterday at the gym, I hopped on the elliptical. I like to listen to my iPod but watch the ticker on CNN so I can find out what is going on in the world while I've been educating tomorrow's leaders. Two items nearly knocked me off the machine and most definitely broke my stride. The first was the news that ABC is cancelling All My Children and One Life to Live, something I'll likely blog about within the next couple days after I've had a chance to deal with my shock and grief. The other was the following headline: "Zsa Zsa Gabor to become new mother at 94, husband says."

SON OF A BISCUIT!

You have got to be freakin' kidding me!

When I got home, I went to the CNN website to read the horrific details. Apparently, Zsa Zsa's husband, the very creepy and extremely shady Prince Frederic van Annhalt, is pursuing the creation of a child with Gabor via surrogate. Never mind the fact that Zsa Zsa is 94, Prince Fred is 67. Never mind the fact that the soon-to-be mother hasn't been able to walk in nearly a decade or that the duo have apparently had some pretty serious financial issues lately. Gee, that just seems like the perfect duo to raise a newborn child -- a legless old diva who has LONG surpassed her "sunset year" and her Social Security-eligible spouse (husband #9, by the way).

So not only is Zsa Zsa indestructible. Now she has to taunt me with her superior parenting, too?

Uncool, Zsa Zsa. Un...cool.

And really, really gross.

Of course, there is a very logical part of me that is horrified by this as well. How irresponsible is it for these two to even be considering this? What kind of life would this poor freak show of a child have? Sure, Annhalt could live to be 90 and be there for a couple decades, but what kind of stability can he give this child? What kind of parent can either of them honestly expect to be? I mean, I don't know if they offer a kid's menu at the early bird seating at most "fine" restaurants, and the handicapped and elderly parking at Little League games is shockingly minimal. This kid would have to go through life knowing that he was part of some really sick and weird science experiment, live a large portion of that life without his mother (who certainly won't live long enough to see the kid hit puberty...or even begin teething), and be the subject of humiliation and mocking at every corner. Can you imagine the field day the douchebags at TMZ would have with this kid? Can people be accused of child abuse and neglect before a child is even born?

Another article on CNN tells us that this is likely not going to happen -- and is probably impossible to boot. But the mere idea that this duo has even entertained such a notion is just another example of the belief that celebrities exist in their own imaginary world of delusion. And Zsa Zsa just may be the queen of the world.