I am a little late to the game here, but I forced myself to watch “The Amazing Race” last night in an effort to hog the remote and prevent my eyeballs from having to view yet ANOTHER football game. So, from what I can gather, this show is basically just awkward couplings (rebel son and straight-laced dad, beauty pageant wife and adventurer husband, etc..nothing like a well-oiled stereotype to get the networks drooling) racing around the world. Last night, they were in Dubai. At the beginning of the show, the teams had to pick up a locked briefcase, get to a marina, paddle out to meet a Sheik on a boat who gave them a Rolex watch, paddle back to the marina, and open the briefcase for their next clue. The trick? The watch was stuck at 8:35, and the briefcase code was 8, 3, 5. EVERY SINGLE TEAM I SAW GOT THIS ON THE FIRST TRY. Um, are you kidding me? If this was me, I would STILL be at the marina, trying my birthday digits for the thousandth time. Six months later, they’d be shooting the reunion special at some lot in LA and they’d have to set up special equipment to beam me (and the briefcase, of course) up from the marina in Dubai. So, I am on the couch, totally flummoxed by all this, when the genius boyfriend cleared it all up for me in one word “Editing”. Wow. I never thought of that. Editing. It’s so simple! I console myself by remembering that, though great editors taketh away, greedy TV networks giveth back in the form of “behind the scenes” specials and Directors’ Cut DVDs. Which means, ultimately, I will be able to see each and every one of those teams stuck at the marina for perhaps hours on end trying to figure out how to open up the damn briefcases.