"Mine is a very familiar story..."

“Hi, I’m Ellen. Like pretty much every woman on tv who is sharing screen time with a guy, I’m smart, competent, and cute. I’m also long-suffering because of my friend Dave, here. Like pretty much every guy on tv who is sharing screen time with a girl, Dave is a fat, clueless bag of uncombed, unshaven fertilizer who couldn’t find his ass with two flashlights and a GPS.”

“As is always the case with the female side of any guy-girl relationship on television, my cool industriousness keeps our small corner of the world from spinning into chaos, while Dave would probably stick his foot into a bucket of water while sucking on a power cord if I let him out of my sight for more than five minutes.

I’m long-suffering, because my ‘partner,’ Dave here, is constantly attempting to undermine our ability to survive in a competitive environment merely by Being Dave- a clunky, clumsy, worthless road block I must be constantly swerving around as I drag us both to the top.

I imagine that Dave and I would be getting our own sitcom in the near future, except for the fact that- let’s face it- our story has been told a thousand times on a thousand different shows dating back to the 1970s at least. Actually, I’m pretty sure that Hugh Beaumont was the last fully functional male to appear on an American television, and even he had to be pulled back to the straight and narrow by Barbara Billingsley from time to time.

So for now, please sit back and enjoy episode #213,497 in television’s longest-running show, “The Adventures of Intelligent Beautiful Woman and her Dimwitted Dumbass Male Partner.’ My only request is that you continue to avoid asking the obvious question- ‘why does she put up with this shit?’ Because to that query, I’m sorry to report, there is no answer.”