I hate to admit this out loud, but I honestly may be acquiring a little “American Idol” problem.

That happens sometimes, you know. You’re going along, living a perfectly fine life, knowing exactly which things you need to worry about and which things other people have to worry about–and then suddenly you realize you’re actually spending some of your very own designated Worry Time hoping that a 17-year-old kid you don’t even know isn’t going to get called “pitchy” and burst into tears on national television.

The thing is, my problems need all my worrying–and I don’t have time to take on other people’s. Yet there I am, now three nights a week, watching television and saying things to the set like, “Oh, come on, now! You’re not really going to wear that hat?!”

And: “Ohhh, nooooo…don’t get all warbly when you get up in the high register!” 

And then: “Oh, my God! Simon did not just say that!” followed by, “But you know, he does have a point…if only he could say it nicely.”

I hear that apparently most of America shares this obsession with me–and yet somehow I’m alone among my family and friends in even being able to sit through this show. My mother-in-law says she got up and turned it off back when Jennifer Hudson was voted off, apparently years ago. My kids all say they’re too busy to watch it. And my friends don’t even know what it is I’m talking about. American…what?   

But here’s why it’s my guilty pleasure: I think I love the sheer courage of people being willing to get up on that stage and expose that delicate, shimmering little hope that we all carry within us of being a person who can reach other people. They come to us as amateurs–people who are working at Home Depot or waiting tables or taking care of their sick grandmothers–and you can just see in their faces that all they want is just to stand up there and belt out a song and have people clap for them. That’s all: just a little clappage.

I know, I know. It’s crassly commercial, and half the time the most talented person doesn’t even win it because there are websites that advocate voting for the worst contestant, just so the show remains funny and entertaining, and we get to hoot and holler when funny-looking, clueless people hit bad notes and hurt our eardrums in the process.

As someone who cannot sing very well–my father used to cover his ears when I chimed in on “Happy Birthday”–I guess I just get delighted when somebody unknown jumps up on that stage, like Melinda Doolittle did, and sings a song that makes you just go, ”WOW. If she doesn’t win this whole damn thing, there should be rioting in the streets.”

And if she doesn’t win, and there IS rioting in the streets, you can count on my family and friends to be the ones saying, “What? Why are all these people rioting? WHAT is going on? American…what?” 

I’ll have to explain it to them.