It looks like CBS listened to my suggestion (who even knew I had this kind of power…quick, Mark Burnett, call me, I have lots of other ideas, too!) and gave Jeff and Jordan a reality show that begins tonight! It is called “Jeff and Jordan Do America”, and it will be featured online. In honor of their show’s debut and because I am in the process of writing about the brand new season of “Big Brother” (look for that Friday) I wanted to share one of my best memories of 2012 again.

Reality TV when done well, can hook you for life. That, my friends, is exactly what happened to me when I started watching Big Brother. I blame my mother and her best friend Debbie for getting me hooked in the first place, by the way. They were totally my Big Brother pushers…”Here, little girl, just try it, one little episode won’t kill you” until pretty soon I was a full-blown addict just like them.

Now for those of you who have never had the Big Brother experience, just know that it is a summer show where a group of around sixteen people enter a house and live together, totally sequestered from the outside world. I have watched many, many seasons of this show and have had many favorite houseguests (if you want to play the game, you have to know the lingo), but none have captured my undying love and devotion like Jordan Lloyd and Jeff Schroeder from seasons 11 and 13. See, here is the thing, y’all, Jordan is from Charlotte, so I immediately felt a kinship to her, and then during her original season, she met a boy (totally the HOTTEST one in the house) from Chicago named Jeff, and I, as a viewer, got a chance to watch them fall in love right on my screen over the summer. It was the stuff of Hollywood movies and frankly, my daily imagination. And then, week by week, Jordan got closer and closer to the end, and I got more and more devoted to my hometown girl, until finally she capped off my summer (and hers, I suppose) with a win! And Jeff was right there by her side, and I was crying, and it was FANTASTIC.

I then went on to watch them on Amazing Race together, interspersing their absence from my TV screen with articles I would find online and videos of them from that fateful summer on YouTube. Huh, what, you mean I don’t actually know them in real life, please, as if that has ever stopped me before from believing I am moments away from becoming their next best friend.

And then last summer, I got a tiny little gift (I like to think it came from my mom, just to make sure I didn’t drop the Big Brother habit in her absence), when it was announced that for season 13, Jordan and Jeff would be back AGAIN. I am pretty sure just reading the news article made me cry. I did what any good friend would do and totally forced my good girlfriend Lisa to watch it with me, promising a summer of fun. Let’s just say that Lisa totally caved into the pressure and by the end of the summer, it is *possible* that we might have both subscribed to the live feeds. As if watching the show three times a week on TV is not enough, you can purchase the opportunity to watch the houseguests 24 hours a day on your computer from multiple camera angles, all while surfing internet websites reading minute to minute updates of all the happenings inside the house. It is probably the equivalent of going from being a casual smoker to a crack addict for Big Brother viewers, but totally healthy for you, of course!

And once again, I spent the summer season loving me some Jordan Lloyd and Jeff Schroeder. They just make me happy, honestly, and Lisa totally nailed it when she described Jordan as everything that is right with the world. When we are trying to look on the bright side of a situation, she will always tell me that we are “channeling our inner Jordan”!

For my birthday, Lisa gifted me with possibly one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. She had a special Season 13 Big Brother T-shirt made just for me. I told her at the time that the only thing that could possibly ever make it any better would be if she could somehow arrange for Jordan to sign my shirt, because the thing is that Lisa actually knows Jordan from her hair salon where Jordan works, like in real life, not just from You Tube videos and hours of Big Brother viewing like me.

Cut to a random Thursday in January, when I am sitting on the couch with the kids watching Never Say Never, right around the part where Scooter Braun is making some fan’s dreams come true, when my cell phone buzzes with Lisa telling me that right then, at that exact moment, she is seeing Jordan for the first time since the summer, and she will ask her about signing my shirt. OH.MY.GOD. Now, at the moment of reading this text, I am in a warm-up suit with absolutely no make-up on and my children already in their jammies, but what I respond with is something along the lines of “I can come right now, my children can stay in the car, who cares that I have a terrible case of laryngitis, OH.MY.GOD.!!!”

Thankfully, Lisa wrote me back quickly to say that actually, the next day will be fine, and we would meet up to see Jordan the following morning, when I will be A) showered and wearing cosmetics and B) child-free. I take to Facebook and Twitter to announce my good fortune, and I am not even kidding that within ten minutes of posting this news on Twitter, I had at least eight new people following me and sending me messages and asking if I was going to be writing a column about Jordan. The pressure was really on then, because as much as I thought I was a fan of hers, these people were FANS of hers!

The big day arrived, and I made sure that I had my shirt, two different permanent markers, my camera and my best hope that I would be able to croak out a few words with my lingering lack of voice. Driving over to the salon, it hit me full force that my mother would LOVE this story, she thought Jordan was adorable on her first season, and it started to get me super emotional. Oh no, I could not go into this situation and cry! Talk about a total fangirl move, people, she would never want to be my friend with that kind of display.

So, we walk into the salon and there is Jordan, like right there, like right in front of me, and Lisa introduces me, and I immediately apologize for my inability to speak and then of course for my laryngitis, too…ha, ha, ha! And here is what happened next that was so totally the stuff of every famous person encounter fantasy I have ever had, Jordan just totally starting chatting with us and with her best friend Megan who works with her (and she is totally adorable, too!), as if the four of us were total besties. She was so open and friendly and funny and kind, and I kind of forgot after about two minutes that she was also the girl I had watched on TV for many, many hours, because she was just so REAL. We talked about her upcoming move to California, how skinny the girls are there and how like me, she is an eater, which was probably one of my favorite moments of the experience, because she was able to accurately describe eating in a way that normal, skinny, non-eating girls don’t. We talked about reality TV and jobs and traveling and shows that we liked and didn’t like. I told her about my mom, and she was so sweet. We talked about her upcoming to trip to Cambodia with Build A City and how likely she might be to come home with armfuls of children, because in addition to being beautiful and kind, she is also a humanitarian. I know, right?! So much fantasticness from one person! Overall, I just felt like I walked out of there having made a connection with her, which honestly, not that it was even possible, made me love her more.

So, of course, I tweeted her a huge thank you and GUESS WHAT, she totally tweeted me back! Here is what she said:

Ummm, let me get this straight, not only does she think I am easy to talk to, but she is offering to have Jeff sign my shirt, too?! There was no way to play it cool, except to say, YES, that would be GREAT, all while screaming like a little girl on the inside.

Sadly, unless they trek through the jungle on Survivor, I think they have run out of CBS shows to do, but I am going to cross my fingers and channel my inner Jordan and hope that the CBS executives give them their own personal reality show!