CSI: Why I love you so much

Because if there’s a murder scene with 17 dismembered bodies and blood and guts dripping off the ceiling and running down the walls and knee-deep puddles of muck everywhere you look, Catherine will arrive to process the area in head-to-toe white cashmere.

Because your cases can turn on a flake of dry skin you find under a blowing leaf or on a single eyelash you find after sifting through thousands of pieces of debris vacuumed out of a shag carpet, but you still never wear those unflattering hairnets when you gather evidence.

Because you also never wear HazMat suits—unless they make you look sexy.

Because you will test the DNA of every drop of moisture you find at a murder scene UNLESS it will help you solve a case in under 48 minutes plus commercials.

Because your gun vault has more atmosphere and trendy backlighting than most high-end dance clubs.

Because when your investigations take you to high-end dance clubs, they always look as trendy and appealing as a homecoming dance on Saved by the Bell.

Because you get to say “bled out.” I wish I got to say “bled out” as often as you do. But the opportunity never comes up in advertising. At least not very often.

Because the blood at your crime scenes looks as gruesome as a bowl of warm cherry Jell-O. But you wouldn't know that because you investigate all your crime scenes in creepy darkness. And the creepier your crime scenes, the more you pile on the artfully lit darkness.

Because one of your victims died of a subdural hematoma soon after being served a tray of Shirley Temples. And now I'm on a tireless crusade to get the world to call that delicious concoction of 7-Up and grenadine a "subdural hematoma." (It's a far more apt name for a bubbly red beverage, don't you think?)

Because if you have the slightest inkling that there might be a body buried in a thousand-acre landfill, you’ll find that body before the next commercial.

Because your corpses, even after days of rotting in the sun or bloating under water, always look like napping supermodels. Unless their gross disfigurements figure prominently in your plotlines—but even then you still manage to make them look pretty fuckable.

Because your CSI people are practically exploding with detailed, working knowledge of a staggering array of arcane disciplines from scuba diving to bus mechanics to GPS technology, but they still have to explain the most basic elements of forensic science (“pooling blood always follows gravity”) to each other week after week.

Because your make-believe technology is so advanced, you can produce museum-quality images from the reflections in the eyes of people who happen to have their pictures taken as they’re witnessing crimes.

Because every schmo you pull in off the street to interrogate knows full well that he or she has the right to walk out at a moment's notice—but doesn't do so until there's been a Dramatic Revelation or a Misleading Clue or it's time for a commercial, whichever comes first.

Because your Web site treats your characters as real people, with no listings of the actors’ names, forcing us to do some
creative Googling.

Because your head detective's name is Jim Brass. (Get it? He's a COP! And they call him BRASS!)

Because Catherine’s last name is Willows. And she used to be a stripper.

Because every time you show a closeup of Nick Stokes and his thick bull neck and his impossibly handsome mug, his eyes are clearly saying: Come freak me wild, Jake. You are the only man I will ever love. My body is your playground. I also make excellent blueberry muffins and I like to clean the kitchen.

Because every time you give your characters painful playful banter or disturbing little moments of plot intrigue (like when Grissom gives Sara cryptic compliments on her beauty) or force them to use the words “murder central” when they find a body in a hotel room near a staircase, your actors almost never look into the camera and mouth the words I took this job just to pay off my school loans.

Because you are the meth addiction in the circuit party of life. I'm hooked from the moment I see the sweeping overhead shots of Vegas that open every episode—and by the time Grissom utters his obligatory Painfully Clever Wry Observation three or four minutes later to signal that it's time to TiVo through the opening credits, your impossibly red blood and guts are entrenched deep within my more realistically colored blood and guts. And I wouldn't have it any other way.