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Hidden cameras film husband-head

Heidi RiceFried RiceGlenwood Springs, CO Colorado

“I’m wearing my shorts with the hole in the crotch!” husband-head yelled as he came bounding down the stairs, ready to watch the Packers play for Monday Night Football.Normally, this would not have bothered me. But on this particular evening – unbeknownst to husband-head – he was being secretly taped by Dateline NBC.”Oh dear Lord, please let him be wearing underwear,” I silently prayed.It all started out with an e-mail a couple months earlier from one of Dateline’s producers.”I’m Julie Cohen, a producer at Dateline NBC,” the message said. “I came across your column and am hoping to have a conversation for a piece I’m working on.”She left a phone number and so I called back, wondering what in the WORLD she could possibly want.Turns out, Dateline was doing a piece on “football widows” – men who are football fanatics and the women who love them. Apparently after reading the column, she thought husband-head and I would be good candidates for the show.The piece involved interviewing me alone, then taping husband-head watching a football game without his knowledge, then getting him to a meeting where they would tell him what they’d done and interview him. But it was absolutely essential that husband-head not know any of this was happening.”I would SO divorce my wife if she did that to me on national TV!” one of his friends said after I confided in him.

After numerous telephone and e-mail conversations, Julie flew out from New York and correspondent Josh Mankiewicz flew in from L.A. to secretly interview me at a nearby hotel.Josh and I sat in facing chairs under some really hot lights while a camera crew filmed us. The sound man came over and fitted me with a microphone on my chest and I jokingly accused him of trying to cop a feel. He did not find that funny.Then we began the interview and after a few general questions, Josh started to put the screws to me to test how much I knew about football.”How many downs are there?” he asked.”I dunno … ten?” I shrugged.”Good answer,” he smiled.When he asked who won the SuperBowl last year, I had no clue.”What does a tight end do?” he continued.I just looked at Josh and smiled.”Careful Heidi, this is a family show,” he hissed under his breath.

Then he drilled me about husband-head and his love of football.”Football or food?””Football or beer?”The answers, of course, were “football.””Football or sex?”Yeah, and you said this was a family show …The interview took about 45 minutes and I was thankful to get away from the hot lights. In fact, at one point, Josh took out a compact and began powdering his face and a camera man yelled over to ask if I was wearing makeup because my face was starting to get shiny.”Well I was before it melted under these lights,” I said defensively.So they powdered me, too.



The next day, Julie and a special “covert camera man” came out to install three hidden cameras in my living room to tape husband-head watching the game.I had already been told to move some furniture around and purchase some big plants to help hide the cameras.So as soon as husband-head left for work at 6:30 a.m., I called Julie and told her the coast was clear.It took EIGHT HOURS for them to install the three lipstick-sized cameras and hide two camera decks, which I had been instructed to turn on to start the 3 1/2 hour tape.They left just an hour before husband-head was supposed to get home and I was a nervous wreck. When I heard his truck pull up in the driveway, I quickly turned on the decks to start the tape.That’s when husband-head went upstairs to change from his work clothes and came bounding down the stairs to watch the game.”I’m wearing my shorts with the hole in the crotch!” Stay tuned next week for an account of husband-head’s taping and his surprise interview when Dateline NBC informs him of what they’d done.Heidi Rice is a staff reporter for the Post Independent. Her column runs every Friday. Visit her Web site at http://www.heidirice.com.


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