Photo: Orin_Opiglot on Flickr

Tonight’s episode of Wife Swap leads me to believe the Chinese New Year the world just celebrated rung in the Year of the Ass.

Now, I rarely watch TV. When I do, though, I like to watch trashy shows. It’s a guilty pleasure of mine. I watch American Idol auditions and family-based reality garbage like Nanny 911 (is that even still on?) and, yes, even Wife Swap.

Tonight’s Wife Swap ‘star’, Mr. Stephen Fowler – CFO/VP Business Development at Sunlink Corporation – was likely San Francisco’s most obnoxious resident ever, and one of the rudest human beings I have ever seen in action.

Several pages of tweets confirmed I’m not alone here…

Here’s a quick background on his family:

Stephens-Fowler family from Northern California consider themselves “citizens of the world.” They strive for excellence in both mind and body. Life coach and certified weight-loss hypnotherapist Rene (43) and British-born environmental entrepreneur Stephen (49) raise their children, Juliette (11) and James (8), to be both health and environmentally conscious. With a diet of strictly organic food and weekends spent doing “family fitness activities,” the kids admit they can’t remember the last time they had a French fry. Domestics are taken care of by a housekeeper, as that is regarded as a necessity in the Stephens-Fowler set. In order to ensure acceptance to an Ivy League school, they push their kids to excel in highbrow activities such as music, fencing and speaking foreign languages. Both children attend a bilingual school and have already visited over 12 countries. [thefutoncritic.com]

This guy may have an IQ of 158, but boy is he lacking in basic social graces. Some guy was so irate during the show he posted this listing on Craigslist:

Well, here you go dude… someone tracked down his home address.

I actually felt badly for his wife, Rene. It is quite obvious the only reason this family would participate in such a show was for her self-promotion. It’s a shame how it worked out, really, because she looks like she’s probably good at what she does. Too bad she is so influenced by someone so totally removed from reality. My heart was aching for her because even though she’s deluded herself into thinking that being overworked and overstressed is good for you as long as your body is healthy (even if her children are neglected), I could tell she was ashamed at what a jerk her husband was being at the table meeting at the end of the show. I can only imagine how mortified she was after seeing his absolutely inhumane treatment of the ‘swapped wife’ during the show.

What I felt for them, however, paled in comparison to how heartbroken I was for the other woman. I’m sure the good does not outweigh the bad from this experience. No amount of money or compensation can make up for the treatment she received.

I hope that by watching the show he realizes what an ass he is. Maybe something good can come of it.

I doubt it though.