Enjoy the ride... please...

Dear Americans,

Some of you really never could understand the difference between fact and fiction, could you? Okay, there's probably people like that in every culture, but you seem amazingly good/bad at missing the distinction. Over here in Australia, we're particularly good at sarcasm and other forms of not taking things seriously, so we find your earnestness both bizarre and amusing.

Here's a hint. You know that show Desperate Housewives? The one that's been a huge success in both your country and mine?

It's not real. Uh-uh. Some of you are reeling in shock, I know, but I thought it was time to break the news to you.

I know who you are. You're the same ones that I've just seen saying that it wasn't realistic for Mama Solis to run around the hospital as soon as she woke from a coma. You used to watch the X-Files and debate whether Mulder and Scully could really get to Idaho from Washington D.C. by 8am.

Fiction. All of it. They fiddled with reality for dra-ma-tic-pur-pos-es. A wacky concept, but I'm sure you'll learn to live with it eventually.

I don't think reality television has really helped you. It suggests that real life is somehow entertaining and worth watching. Actually, life is better lived than viewed. And the first episode of the Lone Gunmen probably freaked the hell out of you back in 2001. It freaked me out, because over here it screened less than a week before September 11th.

Just another step in blurring the line between fantasy and reality. But trust me, Desperate Housewives is firmly in the fantasy camp. Bree doesn't need your letters of support.