In doing my research for this blog post, I googled when the Amazing Race’s first episode came out. Amazingly, it was September 5, 2001. That means it came out in an innocent time before 9/11, the Bitter Pandemic and the birth of my kids or even this blog. I was just a young married guy ignorantly unaware of all the Bitterness to come. On September 5th, 2001, I got home from work, and watched a brand-new reality show about 11 teams of people racing around the world, finding clues, completing tasks, and competing a million dollars. It was the first show I ever watched that made me feel exhausted after one hour of television.

In the beginning, The Amazing Race wasn’t the juggernaut that it is now. It was competing in the now highly competitive reality show space against another similar reality show called Lost (not to be confused with the JJ Abrams show). In that show, contestants were blindfolded and dropped in a random location in the world and they had to find a way to get home. The were similar because of the worldwide travel and reality show space, but they had a contrast problem. The Amazing Race was a race; Lost was the opposite. It was a show about a bunch of people wandering with no objectives. No objective to race for, no clues, or competitions, just people trying to read compasses and maps. Kind of paint drying stuff.

Uncoincidentally, Lost was cancelled after one season, but the Amazing Race is still going strong. It’s survived 23 years, pandemics, and 2 kids. The only thing that has survived through that many things is me. A lot of people, places, and things have changed in the last 24 years, but The Amazing Race is still one of the constants in my life.

When I was watching the latest episode earlier this week, I got to thinking about all the places that Phil Keoghan has been. According to his IMBD, he’s been to over 50 countries. I thought about what he has to do for his job. He has to brief contestants about the rules, do some voice over for the tasks, etc. and wait at the end of destinations for idiots to finish some easy tasks. On the other hand, he gets to stay in swanky resorts while going to the destinations.

The worst part of his job is telling crying women and exhausted men that they have now been eliminated from the Amazing Race. After so much practice over 36 seasons, he is a master surgeon performing surgery. A nuclear physicist assembling a bomb. Streep performing Shakespear. At the end of the latest episode, Phil expertly told a Father and his crying daughter that they had been eliminated. They thanked him profusely for the experience of coming in 11th place.

It made me think that I would designate Phil Keoghan to my personal bad news teller.

“Bitter Ben, I’m sorry to tell you, but after many rounds of jobs interviews, you have not been offered the job.”

“Phil, it has been an honor to go through this interview process with you.”

“Bitter Ben, the doctor has just examined you and found that you are missing a couple of vertebrae from your back, your shoulder has irreparable damage, and your knees are arthritic, so you will have to deal with knee pain for the rest of your life.”

“Phil, I just feel so blessed to have been through this experience, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it the same way again.”

“Bitter Ben, you know that money you were counting on from the March Madness Bracket for food? I’m sorry to tell you, but Kentucky, your eventual champion, has just been eliminated.”

“Thanks, Phil. I will not have enough money to feed my kids, but it has been a pleasure to waste all my time entering my bracket.”

This guy could deliver the world’s worst news to the world’s worst reactor to news, and they would thank him for telling him the worst thing ever.

As I get older, I know I’ve got loads of bad news coming. My body is falling apart. My parents are going to die sooner than later. My kids are getting older and are finding new and better ways to let me down. I work in an office, so you know people are going to be delivering me more bad news. If I don’t become a hermit and live in the woods, I’ll probably have to talk to people every day. That is a lot of bad news.

I’ve reached out to Phil to see if he can be my full time bad news guy. He still hasn’t got back to me. I have a feeling that he isn’t going to. I’m going to need him to deliver me the news that he isn’t going to be able to work for me.

Since I wasn’t able to hire him yet, I’m going to have to deliver some bad news to you. This blog is really bad and the Bitter Friday Giftures are even worse, and you still have 8 hours of work to go before the weekend. It would have sounded much better coming from Phil, I promise…

When Amazing Race debuted on Sept. 5, 2001…

And we were unaware…

All I knew was that night…

…a bunch of people…

And that show was competing against another reality show…

We should have all…

That a show about racing…

Than a show…

What we also…

Was how good Phil would be…

Telling you that you…

Or even..

He could even tell you…

And you would…

ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH

Bitter Designated Person Ben