They're Just Like Us!

  On the cover of one of those gossip magazines (I can’t remember if it was Celebrity Stalker Quarterly or Shouldn’t You be Worrying About More Important Things?) is a big picture of Jennifer Aniston and some quote about how she’s going to raise her baby as a single mom. I can’t remember the exact quote, because I was at the grocery store and more concerned with whether the ice cream I bought was going to go straight to my hips or my butt. Forget that I didn’t know Jen Aniston was pregnant, nor do I particularly care.
  I’d like to see one of those “Stars are Just Like Us” segments that states: They raise their children as a single parent! And: Over half their marriages end in divorce too! In the article on Aniston, I doubt it says that she’ll be moving back in with her parents and working full time while going to school in order to create a better life for her child. So excuse me for not having any sympathy for a successful Hollywood actress who’s made the choice to raise her child without the father. As much as the magazines and the public try to pretend that celebrities are like normal people, it’s just not true.
  I bet the article also tries to paint Aniston as an empathetic figure. Here she is, trying to bring a child into the world and that dastardly John Mayer runs off. Is he afraid of commitment? Does he really love her? Shouldn’t we instead be worried about the recession? How ever will she survive on her own, raising her child in a Beverly Hills mansion with her millions of dollars and ability to afford round-the-clock personal child care? She’s so strong!

  It's amazing that for many the housing crisis didn't resonate until Ed McMahon appeared on Larry King and explained how his own home was foreclosed on. People were calling in asking what they could do to help Ed McMahon! The neighbor down the street whose wife and three children are being put out on the street? We can't be bothered by them. Not when the Publisher's Clearing House guy has is so much harder.

  So by all means, let's give our sympathy to all the celebrities who have similar problems to us regular folk, except that they have enough money to cure their ails. I'm sure they toss and turn at night in their thousand dollar sheets and wonder whether five million is enough to make it through the next few months or whether they should cancel their vacation to the south of France. 

  Just like the rest of us.