After four consecutive nights of partying, I spent last night at home. I aimed my face at the TV and held down the channel-changing button on the remote. At eleven, I turned it off, convinced America is a far stranger place than I thought.

On Iron Chef America, guest Holly Smith battled the home team's Cat Cora. From her website: "[Ms. Smith's] Cafe Juanita has been a labor of love, allowing Holly to express her passion for Northern Italian food and wine; a commitment to organics and sustainability and a holistic approach to the dining experience. Holly hopes to showcase local products while serving modern Northern Italian inspired cuisine." She's been in every magazine, received every award, blah blah blah.

When the battle ended, Ms. Smith's team beamed with pride, and we saw her Hispanic assistant was missing four of his front teeth. Nobody says a word. Nobody notices. Me, I wonder: exactly how many James Beard Awards does Ms. Smith have to win before her employees can afford incisors? Is she making them wait to buy locally-sourced ivory?

Continuing our theme of idiots versus gays, remember that beauty-pageant moron, Miss South Carolina, who blathered on for five minutes about trying to find crap on maps? Caitlin "Caite" Upton is on The Amazing Race this season, and last night she proved exactly how smart she is. She got a chance to knock any team out of the race and she picked the third-place lesbians. "The lesbians!" she repeated, as her eyes glazed over and bits of foam appeared at the corners of her mouth. "LESBIANS!"

She parroted the words like they're an epithet, until you started to wonder if the show was homophobic for allowing it. I mean, would we see this idiot make these same outbursts if she had other targets in mind? If she were playing against a pair of rabbis, for instance, would we hear repeated exclamations like "When I get a chance, I'm really gonna screw them Jews!"?

The real head-scratcher, though, was the Celebrity Apprentice, a show that clearly cannot be watched by people with functioning brains. Two teams had to make commercials about Right Guard, which means we had to hear alleged celebrities talk about how much they sweat, with various degrees of success. Goldberg, the wrestler, described how stressful his work is, saying "Have you ever wrestled live in front of millions in your underwear?" Well, no, I haven't -- but he hasn't either, unless he's got purple spandex under those pleated Dockers. Chef Curtis Stone tried to convince us that he gushes veritable buckets as he artfully dabs basil bechamel onto porcelain. Holly Robinson-Peete shared a conversation-stopping anecdote about the first time she smelled her preteen son's B. O.

And you thought your friends were weird when they talked about sniffing their newborn's head.

The winning commercial, though, was a tour de force that'd make David Lynch flinch. Two kids are sitting on a couch. "He ain't coming," one kid says.

"Yeah, he is," says the other. "I won him in a contest, so he is."

Clyde "The Slide" Drexler turns up, and what do you think the kids have planned for the basketball star? A game of HORSE? Some one-on-one? Nope. They have Clyde exercise, and then they smell him to see if he has B. O.

You know, if I caught my kid doing this, I'd take him to a psychiatrist. Which is saying something, because if I caught him reading a magazine called "Shetland Ponies Fuck Nazi Sluts!" I'd totally let it slide.

The kids make Clyde do two hundred sit-ups then sniff at him. "Nothing," the first kid in disgust. "Told you," the other replies. They make Clyde do a thousand jumping jacks. "Nothing," repeats the first kid. "Told you," the other replies.

Judging by the dialog, you realize they've planned this in advance. "Oboy!" one of them must have yelled. "A basketball star is coming to my house!"

"Wow!" screamed the other. "I wonder if his pits smell like cheese."

Obviously, the world has changed. On TV, we've got commercials in between commercials, with people fighting over who can sell out more. We proudly paint our children as perverts if it fits the marketing plan. "If I work really hard," goes our new American Dream, "one day I'll sign with the Yankees, and I can see what A-Rod smells like!"

At some point, we think, something's got to give. People just can't be that dumb. The last battle the world will face isn't going to be masses of Satan's winged followers fighting haloed angels with enchanted swords.  No, there'll be somewhat blander teams, like Idiots vs. Lesbians, or Rich People vs. Toothless Assistants, with the rest of us taking sides.

Which is too bad. Because judging from the word around my neighborhood, sweaty angels smell like basil bechamel.