If You Dare Wear Short Shorts

TUTTLE MODE

by James Tuttle

Gentle Reader,

Are you sitting down?  If not, maybe you should be.  I have something to tell you.  You may have come to know me as an icon of taste and style over these past weeks but I have a terrible admission.  I’m not actually perfect.  For one thing, my left thumb bends a little crooked, the result of a nasty childhood break.  And that’s not the worst of it.  I am also recovering from an acute addiction problem.

The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint you, especially now that we’ve become so close.  If you think back over our history, we’ve been betrayed by Balmain together, dealt with trampy Housewives, and confronted drag as an art form.  You and I have even learned some tricks for the over-40 guy and gone on the lam from the damn mafia, so I feel I should be honest with you.  I’m just going to say it.  I was addicted to HGTV.

I don’t know how it started.  I can’t even remember which show I first watched on this seductive network but it was quickly followed by another and then another until HGTV was on whenever I was home.  You have to admit that Candice Olsen does very glamorous work with her gas fireplaces and crystal chandeliers.  David Bromstad designed great rooms in the Bay Area, especially when he wasn’t wearing his shirt, before he tanked on the Miami season.  Maybe he started wearing his shirt too much.

And don’t get me started on Sarah’s House!  Unbeknownst to them, I was involved a love triangle with Sarah and her witty sidekick Tommy, as they overhauled a sixties suburban split-level one season and then a Victorian farmhouse the next.