Season 6 of 19 Kids and Counting. God help us all!

[Trynn]

When I hear the word "jug," I think of a milk jug, NOT a pitcher. I was trying to figure out how Michelle even GOT kittens into a milk jug, unless she cut the top off. (I had a mental image of her trying to stick the kitten through the smaller opening....shudder)

I still don't understand how kittens would fit into that tiny tiny pitcher.

[green]

Just watched the episodes. Thanks for uploading them on youtube.

Well, he said, "I have 4 or 5 people working for me" and I kept thinking, "you don't know how many people you have working for you exactly? It's not like you're running a fortune 50 company with thousands of employees."

Sorry! I messed up with the number.. I am a little sleep-deprived and just got the general smugness of how he said he has people working for him. :?

[MrsKay]

It is TINY TOONS. *flounces in huff* :lol:

Ah, right, Tiny Toons - I knew it was one of the shows that came on around the same time when I was a kid. :lol: I loved Jessa at the end of that episode! Josie reminds me a lot of ToddlerKay. That's not a good thing, considering the fact that he's 20 months old and pretty much on track. :?

[freejoytoo]

My heart just broke for those cats :( Those people are sick and should never be allowed to own animals.

[YPestis]

I was also surprised when Josh said he had "4 or 5" people working for him. I'm assuming he meant there are that many people who help with the car lots and not necessarily salaried workers who work fulltime/part time directly for him? I figure the mechanic and person who detail have their own businesses and they get paid for every car that Josh hires them to look at. I knew Josh had two fulltimers who sell cars, even that seems like a lot for a small used car lot in a small town.

I know we can't tell how much Josh works based on a few shots of him playing with the toy helicopter, but his business is relatively small, and in a poor economy....I wonder how Josh finds money to keep the business afloat and providing for two other men? Anna used to help him with the books, but it doesn't appear that way anymore, so that's one less "free" worker.

I have a couple of theories:

1. Josh is using the TLC money he earns to keep his business going.

2. Josh has low overhead due low/no mortgage on his house (grandparents'), less payment for his car lot (Jim-Bob helped with that), maybe huge investment from the parents to jumpstart his car lot which he's still using. This means he can pay himself less, pay little on car lot land, and have more money to pay employees.

3. Josh's employees are paid mostly on commission, this may not even be their only job or even a full-time position.

4. Josh is borrowing money to keep his business going. He's using help from TLC, parents, whatever to keep things going until the economy picks up again.

5. Josh's business really is thriving and doing excellent. His family's TV show is an advertisement for his business. People come from surrounding areas to talk and gawk. All this increased foot traffic is helping his business despite any laziness, incompetence, or whatever that otherwise would have worked against Josh's business.

I'm starting to think #5 is a big contributor to Josh's ability to keep the business afloat. His family is fairly well known now, even if the show is on cable. The other businesses which are featured on TV shows seem to also do ok (Hardcore Pawn, Cake Boss etc). Just think, every episode, every advertisement for the show, every publicity appearance is an ad for Josh's business too. Other small businesses can't beat that type of exposure. Once all of this dies down, it'll be interesting to see how Josh's business does....

[Closed Womb]

Thanks for putting these up.

In the bowling/baby steps episode I noticed three times that JB goes to kiss Michelle and she turns her cheek towards him: 16.14, 16.40 (which may actually be the same cheek kiss, not sure) and 16.59 (on below youtube clip). I've noticed that often. I wonder if it is the breath thing (didn't he go to the allergist because of bad breath?) or if she tires of him kissing/pawing her but keeps sweet?

Seriously, I totally want a few platters of fried food. Seriously. That artery clogging crap with a side of ranch looked pretty damn guilty-pleasure-good to me.

I have to say that JB was surprisingly not-a-dick to Mrs. Keller. If I was seeing correctly, she was using the bumpers. One time the ball bounced off and she got the pins. If this is the case, he was the clear winner.

Kittens and Konstruction

JFmAbEV3Ap0

Baby Steps

s5EDJ6WLOuo

[Closed Womb]

I was also surprised when Josh said he had "4 or 5" people working for him. I'm assuming he meant there are that many people who help with the car lots and not necessarily salaried workers who work fulltime/part time directly for him? I figure the mechanic and person who detail have their own businesses and they get paid for every car that Josh hires them to look at. I knew Josh had two fulltimers who sell cars, even that seems like a lot for a small used car lot in a small town.

I know we can't tell how much Josh works based on a few shots of him playing with the toy helicopter, but his business is relatively small, and in a poor economy....I wonder how Josh finds money to keep the business afloat and providing for two other men? Anna used to help him with the books, but it doesn't appear that way anymore, so that's one less "free" worker.

I have a couple of theories:

1. Josh is using the TLC money he earns to keep his business going.

2. Josh has low overhead due low/no mortgage on his house (grandparents'), less payment for his car lot (Jim-Bob helped with that), maybe huge investment from the parents to jumpstart his car lot which he's still using. This means he can pay himself less, pay little on car lot land, and have more money to pay employees.

3. Josh's employees are paid mostly on commission, this may not even be their only job or even a full-time position.

4. Josh is borrowing money to keep his business going. He's using help from TLC, parents, whatever to keep things going until the economy picks up again.

5. Josh's business really is thriving and doing excellent. His family's TV show is an advertisement for his business. People come from surrounding areas to talk and gawk. All this increased foot traffic is helping his business despite any laziness, incompetence, or whatever that otherwise would have worked against Josh's business.

I'm starting to think #5 is a big contributor to Josh's ability to keep the business afloat. His family is fairly well known now, even if the show is on cable. The other businesses which are featured on TV shows seem to also do ok (Hardcore Pawn, Cake Boss etc). Just think, every episode, every advertisement for the show, every publicity appearance is an ad for Josh's business too. Other small businesses can't beat that type of exposure. Once all of this dies down, it'll be interesting to see how Josh's business does....

I think you are right. I don't understand celebrity worship, but I have friends who were happy to announce that they "bought their car from John Elway" (John Elway Ford dealership in Denver). I have another friend who stood in line for hours to see the pawn shop in Pawn Stars (been by it lots of times in Vegas, but never went in. Unless it's early morning, there is usually a very long line.) None of these people have met the "stars" involved. I think many people find something very magical about television and they will go out of their way to be part of it in some way.

That said, I think once the show is cancelled and the pseudo-celebrity status wanes, Josh is going to have to actually BE there to get any benefits. Many people are still impressed by has-beens, but less so by the businesses has-beens happen to own.

[lilwriter85]

I think you are right. I don't understand celebrity worship, but I have friends who were happy to announce that they "bought their car from John Elway" (John Elway Ford dealership in Denver). I have another friend who stood in line for hours to see the pawn shop in Pawn Stars (been by it lots of times in Vegas, but never went in. Unless it's early morning, there is usually a very long line.) None of these people have met the "stars" involved. I think many people find something very magical about television and they will go out of their way to be part of it in some way.

That said, I think once the show is cancelled and the pseudo-celebrity status wanes, Josh is going to have to actually BE there to get any benefits. Many people are still impressed by has-beens, but less so by the businesses has-beens happen to own.

I have relatives in the Denver area who have bought cars from John Elway dealership and they proud of it. Another example of celebrity or reality star worship is the people who go to DASH stores in hopes of seeing the Kardashian girls. Those people ended up finding out that the girls aren't the stores a whole lot. Then there are other people who know that the K girls aren't at the stores, but they just like saying they bought something from DASH.

The Duggars are going to have a hard time after the show ends in some ways. I think Boob and Mullet sock away some of the TLC money, but other perks will end for them. Josh and Anna will knocked off their high horses. Some people will slowly forget about them.

[YPestis]

I'm not an animal-lover so I may not understand this but I thought it was dumb to have the Duggar kids keep the pets. If they want to teach the kids responsibilities, how about having them help Grandma with the laundry? Or having the younger boys do more of the cooking and cleaning? It seems incredibly self-absorbed for Michelle to let the little ones have pets while she an army of teen daughters and her mother in law do the bulk of the household chores. How much more clean up do the older girls have to do now that the younger ones have kittens to tend to? Poor grandma is stuck doing 70 loads a week while the younger kids have so much free time they can stay up to feed the kittens round the clock? If they expended some of that effort into the housework, maybe grandma Duggar can get a break!

My personal feeling is that animals are a lot of work and that it's a luxury that families like the Duggars don't really have. They already have a houseful of young children, destructive and messy as any pets, and they already sacrificed their older daughters and grandma Duggar to care for those kids, so why does Michelle think it's great to add to that burden? I guess it doesn't add to her her burden as the kittens are being cared for by the young kids and the younger kids are overseen by the older kids. It's just one more mess to supervise and clean up for her teen daughters. If I was grandma Duggar or one of the older girls, I'd be pissed. If I have to work hard, and the younger children want to learn responsibility, maybe they can start by taking responsibility for their own home?

[valsa]

I'm not an animal-lover so I may not understand this but I thought it was dumb to have the Duggar kids keep the pets. If they want to teach the kids responsibilities, how about having them help Grandma with the laundry? Or having the younger boys do more of the cooking and cleaning? It seems incredibly self-absorbed for Michelle to let the little ones have pets while she an army of teen daughters and her mother in law do the bulk of the household chores. How much more clean up do the older girls have to do now that the younger ones have kittens to tend to? Poor grandma is stuck doing 70 loads a week while the younger kids have so much free time they can stay up to feed the kittens round the clock? If they expended some of that effort into the housework, maybe grandma Duggar can get a break!

My personal feeling is that animals are a lot of work and that it's a luxury that families like the Duggars don't really have. They already have a houseful of young children, destructive and messy as any pets, and they already sacrificed their older daughters and grandma Duggar to care for those kids, so why does Michelle think it's great to add to that burden? I guess it doesn't add to her her burden as the kittens are being cared for by the young kids and the younger kids are overseen by the older kids. It's just one more mess to supervise and clean up for her teen daughters. If I was grandma Duggar or one of the older girls, I'd be pissed. If I have to work hard, and the younger children want to learn responsibility, maybe they can start by taking responsibility for their own home?

It makes more sense if you look at the Duggars' horrific history with pets. There have been multiple cats and dogs who were Duggar "pets", then eventually left to fend for themselves while the family was gone traveling (or when they just didn't want to care for them) and eventually are never heard from again. The work load isn't so bad when you consider that, unlike normal families who understand they'll be caring for these pets for years, the Duggars only care for them for a little while before turning them lose.

Which is a policy that explains a lot about the howler monkies and lost girls too...

[lilwriter85]

I just watched the kittens episode, Mullet fucking pissed me off with keeping the kittens in a rubbermaid pitcher. I used to foster kittens pregnant cats and boxes with thick towels, blanket scraps, or with hot water bottles covered with a towel are the best to use when caring for kittens that young. I'm sick of babyish Jackson and Johanna. Once those kittens are 6 months old, they will probably become outdoor cats because Mullet isn't going to want to deal with litterboxes in the long run. I agree with posters, on Grandma doing 70 loads of laundry while the kids can take care of kittens all day. Some of those boys are old enough to help with laundry.

[lilwriter85]

Agree! But I still think that her glasses look a little bit better than the ones she had before...

I agree, those glasses are a bit better than the previous ones. I bet Anna asked her mom to get nicer glasses for TV. Mrs. Keller isn't aging well and Anna is headed down that path.

[Funky Chicken]

If there was a Bates/Duggar courtship in the works there's no way the show would have been cancelled. They would have milked the shit out of that!

I think that these "cameos" of the kids are almost a way of testing the waters for a spinoff. Whichever kid gets the highest screen points has the potential for a spinoff - and a courtship.

Would that make resultant offspring "poor little Buggars"...?

[gustava]

Except Anna has had her teeth straightened, and that makes a big difference.

(Can't tell on preview whether I've got the quotes correct. Mea culpa, if not.)

[Witsec7]

I just watched the kittens episode, Mullet fucking pissed me off with keeping the kittens in a rubbermaid pitcher. I used to foster kittens pregnant cats and boxes with thick towels, blanket scraps, or with hot water bottles covered with a towel are the best to use when caring for kittens that young. I'm sick of babyish Jackson and Johanna. Once those kittens are 6 months old, they will probably become outdoor cats because Mullet isn't going to want to deal with litterboxes in the long run. I agree with posters, on Grandma doing 70 loads of laundry while the kids can take care of kittens all day. Some of those boys are old enough to help with laundry.

I would like to engage you in a celestial FJ marriage. Meet me in the prayer closest in an hour. :D

[thekate]

Why are they feeding the kittens 7-Up? The rest of the kitten formula (milk, egg yolk, etc.) looked reasonable to my uninformed self, but soda for kittens can't be good!

[hapamama]

I think the loads of laundry is exaggerated too, like most of the popups on the show. I do 4-5 loads a week for 3 people. 19 people, I'd guess 4-5 loads a day?

We have a family of 7, and I do about 160lbs/week including bedding. That's the equivalent of 16 loads in a regular home washer. I do it once a week at the local laundromat in 80 lb capacity washers. I can crank out that 160 lbs in the same amount of time as 1 load takes at home.

[whirlygirly]

Except Anna has had her teeth straightened, and that makes a big difference.

Now if she could just have her nose straightened..

[luckystone]

We have a family of 7, and I do about 160lbs/week including bedding. That's the equivalent of 16 loads in a regular home washer. I do it once a week at the local laundromat in 80 lb capacity washers. I can crank out that 160 lbs in the same amount of time as 1 load takes at home.

I have always thought 70 seems like a LOT.

Though, I probably do 3-4 a week, so 21 versions of me would add up to around 70. But I think with more people it would proportionately reduce as sometimes I do half loads. Also, I go to the gym everyday so I have basically two outfits for the day.

Mrs Keller looks pretty different in the second picture. I always thought she looked hilarious. I still can't believe her name is Suzette and they have an Anna and a Suzanna

[mebeforee]

I really hope that the Duggars don't declaw their cats. I know that's a hotly debated issue at the best of times, but the way they just dump the cats outdoors when they get tired of taking care of them (sorry, "when they're big enough"), it would be an immediate death sentence if the cats didn't even have their claws to protect themselves.

I have two cats at home, one was a stray for over a year before we brought her in. She's tough as nails and frequently leaves us dead animals as gifts (including occasional rabbits; she's a small cat and that is no small feat for her, just carrying them would be impressive). She gets to go outside because she lived half her life out there before we got her and she can't stand to be indoors all day.

We also have a kitten who is an indoor cat. Sometimes he runs outside when we let the big cat or the dog out, but he is promptly caught and brought back in. He is not a stray and doesn't have the skills to just go out and protect himself against other cats, dogs, and the occasional coyote that comes through our area. That kind of thing is often something the mother cat teaches her babies. You wouldn't just throw your kids in the woods and expect them to be able to find food and shelter for themselves, right? That's why you take them hunting and camping and teach them the basics of self-care. Animals might have more instinct than humans but they don't just automatically know things, a lot of that stuff is taught from their mothers, and that is especially true of domestic animals.

Our kitten is so fearless of his environment that it borders on stupidity. He climbs thing he has no business climbing, and he has no sense of self-preservation whatsoever when it comes to the way he tackles the dog on the face and tries to run between the other cat's feet. It's because he has never been hurt that way before, only scolded. He wouldn't last more than a couple days on his own outside. The personality differences between the big cat and the baby is so significant it's impossible to miss that she has been a survivor cat and he hasn't.

I really wish someone would stop them from putting those poor animals outside to get hit by cars and killed by other animals.

ETA: I bring up my kitten because this animal is of a size/age that the Duggars would consider him able to fend for himself. But he's still such a dumb baby that I literally can not imagine doing that. He is still extremely helpless, he just THINKS he isn't.

[Patsy]

Didn't watch the ep - were they fostering kittens for a shelter, in which case, the shelter would desex them? Or, if they just took the kittens on, did they desex them before they let them roam free? Because if not, what is the POINT of taking in stray kittens? You don't keep them alive just long enough to make (exponentially) more strays, there's no POINT.

(Yes, yes, I realise the irony of what I'm saying.)

[Sola]

I think you are right. I don't understand celebrity worship, but I have friends who were happy to announce that they "bought their car from John Elway" (John Elway Ford dealership in Denver). I have another friend who stood in line for hours to see the pawn shop in Pawn Stars (been by it lots of times in Vegas, but never went in. Unless it's early morning, there is usually a very long line.) None of these people have met the "stars" involved. I think many people find something very magical about television and they will go out of their way to be part of it in some way.

That said, I think once the show is cancelled and the pseudo-celebrity status wanes, Josh is going to have to actually BE there to get any benefits. Many people are still impressed by has-beens, but less so by the businesses has-beens happen to own.

Would his business taxes be online?

[HereticHick]

Its almost election time in America, so here a few final gems from the Duggar news archives. I love that the editorial page of Arkansas's largest newspaper is basically calling Jim Bob an unChristian asshole:

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)

January 05, 2001

Steel yourselves The Ledge [Legislature] is coming to town

SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. B8

HIDE THE women and children... The Legislature is riding into town and due to start firing wildly at noon Monday.

Already a few ricochets have been bounced off public opinion. The opening gavel has yet to be heard, and what may be the worst idea of the coming session has been spotted: Remove the property tax on residences entirely, and make up the revenue by raising the state's sales tax, already one of the highest in the Union. Credit for this wild shot goes to Jim Bob Duggar, a Republican representative from Springdale.

Doesn't he understand that a general sales tax is about the most regressive way to raise money, that by charging everybody the same 51/8 percent on every purchase--including groceries!--the sales tax takes a larger share of income from the poor than it does the rich?

What, Jim Bob Duggar worry? "The poor are on food stamps anyway," he explains. Where do you start to explain all this to a man who thinks that's a good argument for taxing bread and milk? What about the working poor? What about those folks who want to stay off food stamps, or are too proud to accept them? What about hard-pressed families trying to make it into the middle class? Taxing the necessities of life isn't just bad policy, it's a moral injustice...

But wait there's more! A leghumper tour-de-force. I was raised Methodist, and the thought of Michelle Duggar being compared to Suzanna Wesley, who wrote spiritual commentaries & taught her children (including the girls) Latin & Greek, makes me gag.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)

September 21, 2001

LETTERS

An extraordinary man

When I first saw the Sunday feature story on the Jim Bob Duggar family and looked at the family picture, my first reaction was "Why in the world would anyone feel the need to have 13 children in this day and age?"

After reading the complete story, I realized that it is this world that needs the men and women those children are being carefully, prayerfully, trained to become.

Michelle Duggar stuck me as a modern-day Suzanna Wesley, who raised her large family, which included John and Charles Wesley, to [have an impact [on] the world for God. I expect the Duggar children to make a positive difference in their world, as well.As for Jim Bob, I believe if you want to know what kind of leader a person is, take a close look at his family. Duggar is undoubtedly an extraordinary man who should make Arkansans proud if elected to Congress.

JUDY HATLEY SIPES, Little Rock

[slickcat79]

What, Jim Bob Duggar worry? "The poor are on food stamps anyway," he explains. Where do you start to explain all this to a man who thinks that's a good argument for taxing bread and milk? What about the working poor? What about those folks who want to stay off food stamps, or are too proud to accept them? What about hard-pressed families trying to make it into the middle class? Taxing the necessities of life isn't just bad policy, it's a moral injustice...

Wow, that's kind of telling. Besides the douchebaggery of a statement like that, it really highlights his priorities. I mean, taxing all the stuff that the Duggars need to buy on a regular basis wouldn't be cheap, but if it gets too expensive the kids can just eat less :? Now, when you try to cost JB more by taxing his investments, then we have a problem...

[Trynn]

Taxing food? I have never heard of anything so revolting in my entire life.

ETA: ok, that's not quite true, but, it is pretty revolting.