When it’s hardcore drama, there must be hardcore celebration.
At a home in Mesa on any given Monday night, you will find "The Girls." That’s the name these Bachelor Nation ambassadors have given themselves as they assemble to wine and wager periodically over the course “the most dramatic season of the Bachelor ever.” Each year is the most dramatic “ever” of course, and the theme-making has kept pace.
Walk into Brenda Laufer’s home, and you’re greeted with a dessert table, called “Fantasy Sweets.” There’s a dozen roses, and roses made of bacon (why didn’t I think of this?). There’s a small shrine to Ben, of course. You can munch on Olivia “Big Mouth” salad.
If you don’t know who Olivia is, then why have you read this far?
There are fantasy brackets, it would seem, skillfully modeled after the best-run March Madness pools, until Brenda says, “we have fantasy games just like you guys with basketball or football or something like that.” There’s also “Ben-go,” which is just like bingo but it’s all about Ben.
No husbands, boyfriends, or any significant others with a y chromosome are allowed… but just to keep it romantic, the host has even arranged for a few of The Girls to receive date cards. (If you don’t know what a date card is, you really should stop reading.)
One of them invites the recipient on an over-the-top romantic adventure which might only be conceived on the Bachelor (most dramatic season ever): in a hot tub, in a field in the middle of nowhere on top of a boat, cruising in Hawaii, with George Michael serenading. At which point, the card reads: “then you say something profound like, ‘this is nice’”.
At least they know how to have fun with it.
Michelle Rundio has been locked into 20 seasons of the Bachelor since 2003. “Progressively over the years the girls have gotten trashier and the drama has gotten bigger which is kind of exciting. So it's kind of neat to see who they will dig up.”
So it’s not real right? It’s as real a group of guys sitting around the house wearing jerseys and wagering over what’s happening on Monday Night Television… right?
“Better than football? Oh Yes,” says the host.
