"Ghost Hunters" -- it's the reason we put plastic on the couch

Usually when I write about a TV show, I like to be fairly knowledgeable about it and make sure I've seen at least a few full episodes before I start yapping on about it -- unless it's Sex and the City, which I just harshly judged with no rationale at all. Anyway, I'd like to talk a bit about Sci-Fi Channel's Ghost Hunters. And I'd be glad to speak knowledgeably about it except, you know, it scares the goddamn bejeezus out of me EVERY SINGLE TIME I WATCH IT!

For those of you who haven't seen it, "Ghost Hunters" follows a team of amateur paranormal investigators who go to purportedly haunted locations and see if they can spot a specter. Millions of normal rational people watch this show every week. But this is usually how my viewing of "Ghost Hunters" goes. We'll do it like a little story:

It's a dark and stormy night. Liz sits down with her ice cream sandwich ready to be entertained by the magic of television. She flips through the channels and stumbles on "Ghost Hunters." Which she starts watching. Like an idiot. She figures it can't possibly scare her as much as it did last time. Her husband walks past and says, "Don't watch that. You're going to get scared." Liz scoffs, telling him he doesn't know what he's talking about...and 20 minutes later, is too scared to walk into the kitchen which is connected to the basement which her imagination now tells her is, in all likelihood, connected to one of three things: the Amityville House, a nest full of zombies or Hell.

Yes, "Ghost Hunters" does bad things to me even though I'm completely convinced it's all fake and silly...except for the parts where they hear voices and see scary shapes and say stuff like, "Dude, did you just feel something brush past?" And then I wet myself.

I am highly susceptible to ghost stories. I've known a lot of people who have seen weird stuff. And I've seen weird stuff. And I've watched movies where people get eaten by weird stuff so as much as I like to try being rational and, you know, an adult, I can't always muster the backbone. Which is why I have a complete and total love-hate relationship with a show like "Ghost Hunters" that manipulates my every fear yet awakens the "Ghostbusters" nerd in me by talking pseudo-science and using gizmos and gadgets to evaluate paranormal experiences. (Somewhere Scully is scoffing.) And for the most part, the show debunks a lot of scary house nonsense -- but other times, they don't.

Did I mention that's when I wet myself?

Obviously, the solution here is just for me to woman-up and realize that I can't handle this show. But I know I won't. I know there's going to be another one of those evenings where I get stupid and think, "No TV show's going to scare me. I'm an adult. I can handle this completely." And wow, am I ever gonna be wrong.