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I can’t remember which season I became addicted to “American Idol,” but it was the season Clay Aiken came in second. We sat enthralled the first part of the season when all the tryouts were going on, and the world was enamoured of Simon Legree, opps, Simon Cowell.

All these young people stood in lines for days. Days, I tell you, not hours. They were all sure that they had a shot at that golden ticket (mind you, this is before I knew what the golden ticket was) to Hollywood. Now, couldn’t they look around and see the thousands of people surrounding them and get a smattering of an idea that possibly, just maybe, their ticket was going to be going home, not Hollywood? I don’t consider myself a pessimist, but even I at that age would have looked around at that lot and said to myself, “yeah right,” and picked myself up and taken myself to the closest train or bus station.

So into the room where the three judges, Randy, Paula and Simon sit, they rush. Some are nervous but some are so confident that it’s an absolute shock when they open their mouths and what sounds like a cross between a braying donkey and croaking frog emerges. Some of these singers — and that’s a stretch, calling them singers — are so bad that I can’t see how they ever got in the room except for comic relief. Some come in costumed in the most ridiculous outfits that no one could take them seriously if they even had a halfway decent voice. I can’t think that they ever thought they had a shot. So, last night they were in my beloved Charleston, South Carolina, and I was shocked at how little talent emerged.

I cringed as the “talent pool” paraded in front of the camera and promptly fell flat on their faces. Mediocre doesn’t begin to describe it. My cats sound better. But the thing that is so shocking is that the ones that are so, well there’s only one word that fits here, bad, are truly shocked that the judges don’t sign them to a contract immediately. They swear (and I wish someone would ask them if they kiss their mothers with that mouth) and cry and rant and rave and are still going on about how the judges will be sorry they missed out on their great talent. Really?

You know, I can look at this mess and clearly see it. There’s a grandmother at the root of this whole thing. Each and every one of them had a grandma who told them “you’re a star baby, you go for it.” And believed it. If grandma is such a believer, then it must be so. God help us if the terrorists ever get hold of a grandma for a recruiter. Our goose will be well and truly cooked.

— Sandi McBride is a resident of Jefferson, who blogs regularly and enjoys her garden and her furry and feathered friends. She is a wife and mother of two sons.