World Poker Tour? You mean World PECKER Tour.

Oh, World Poker Tour. Why would you do me this way?

We really enjoy the poker on television craze at my house. We'll gleefully park in front of pretty much any incarnation of this phenomenon, be it World Series of Poker, World Poker Tour, World Series of Poker Tour--whatever. We're there.

Thus, my husband and I have spent the last few nights watching Travel Channel broadcasts of the Women's World Poker Tour. I'm not sure why such a thing exists at all, honestly, since the regular tour includes women players; poker is like professional billiards in that way: Neither sex has a natural advantage that would necessitate segregated play. Are they worried that female players will become pregnant? Or that male players will be too hamstrung by their chivalric encoding to take pots from females? Whatever. We rolled with it.

And then . . . the commentators came. Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten, to whom I paid no attention whatsoever before two days ago, are suddenly part of some conspiracy to drive me away from my beloved television forever. My list of People Who Fuel My Rage Simply By Speaking On TV just doubled, as it now includes:

1. Jeff Probst
2. John Madden
3. Mike Sexton
4. Vince Van Patten

Mike and Vince absolutely cannot get over the fact that the players in the Women's World Poker Tour are--wait for it--women! I know! They have breasts and everything, and sometimes you can kind of see them! Astounding, truly. Every other goddamn hand is a "catfight," like HOW CLEVER, and they constantly say stupid shit like "the lipstick is off now!" What does that even mean? My husband pointed out that instead of having shiny under-dressed Vegas call girls parade in with the money at the end the way they do with the men, the "ladies" (gag me) get one relatively decently dressed "popular model and actress" (uh huh) who pulls a rope that lets the money waft from the ceiling. He claims that the call girl thing only happens on television, that it's not a factor of the Tour itself but part of the televised programming. I have no problem believing this, but it still says too much about This Land of Ours that I would rather forget.