We've already established that The Today Show, the morning program that feels like a slow release of helium between the skull and the brain, is slowly killing us all. But if the first three hours of the Today show are knocking us out in the hope that we never wake up again, the fourth hour of the Today show, otherwise known as Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb lunacy time, is dressing up our lifeless bodies in Talbot's and propping us up for an old fashioned necro-tea-party.
Does anyone, including NBC, actually know what's goes on during the 4th hour of the Today show? Can anyone stop it? I would call it idiotic, but it's so far beyond idiocy that the League Of Idiots (there has to be one) could probably successfully sue me for defamation. Is NBC aware, for instance, that on certain mornings the 4th hour of the Today show turns into Kathie Lee Gifford's sad-sack, wannabe Andrew Lloyd Weber cabaret? Seriously. There's a recurring segment called "Everyone Has A Story" where she writes a song based on a viewer's "inspirational" story.
This morning's inspirational take-away: it's okay to be a childless woman. Really:
Anca Wass is an accomplished woman. At age 42, she has a good job as an engineer, and a fine home with her husband of 11 years. But she feels like a shadow, because she cannot have children.
"A childless woman is like a shadow – you may or may not notice it on the wall," Wass wrote to the "Everyone Has a Story" series hosted by TODAY's Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. "It doesn't have a shape nor does it make a sound, and it disappears in the night like it never existed."
She has lost friends when they became mothers and no longer had anything to talk to her about. "I understood their joy, but they never made an effort to understand my sorrow," she said.
What they don't mention in this article is that Anca isn't physically unable to have children: She doesn't have any children by choice. Her husband didn't want to have any kids, so rather than leave him over an issue that apparently means a lot to her and go off and have the kid she's super focused on, she decided to live by her husband's wishes, eventually making herself miserable enough to write a letter to the Today show for Kathie Lee Gifford to turn into song. The name of that song? "Shadow Woman"
You can watch a video of that song, and Anca's segment here. (Please don't do this.)
My favorite parts of the segment: when Anca blames her husband for "killing the meaning of mother's day for me," when Anca says her child-ful friends aren't sensitive to her pain with all the children they're shoving in her face all the time, when they show Anca texting by a fountain for some reason, and when Anca says "It almost feels like your life is not worth that much, because if something were to go wrong there would be no one left behind without a mother." That's right: she wanted to have a child because the thought of orphaning her child gives her self-worth. What?
If I wrote a song for Anca, it would be called "Great Job with The Mentoring, But Come On (Give Me A Break)." It'd be more up tempo, too, perhaps a Rhumba.