When I was a child, lengthy periods would pass where I would eat nothing but peanut butter. Sure, I'd mix up my breads and sometimes have peanut butter on a bagel and sometimes peanut butter on rye and sometimes peanut butter on sourdough. Sometimes I'd have raspberry or apricot jam with my peanut butter and sometimes grape jelly, but for a long time, peanut butter was as cool as it got.

Apparently, eating nothing but peanut butter is no longer cool.

At least that's what "Big Brother 4" has led me to believe. The Tuesday (Aug. 26) night episode of the shut-in series finds the non-aquatic sea monkeys still complaining up a storm over Jee's decision to stick them with a full week of peanut butter. Robert is still on the verge of hara-kiri. Wiry Erika is attempting to break herself like a twig. Alison has essentially rammed a tub down her throat and she's stuffing her system with non-peanut butter foods like a goose trying to turn its own liver into foie gras.

Jun is outraged at Jee and says that he's put a target on his back, which she somehow justifies as being supportive to his cause. Jee's still comfortable with his self-serving consolidation of power. The house's system of checks and balances has come crashing down around him, but this Mr. Smith is bent on destroying Washington. He spouts several Darwinian cliches about the strong surviving and about the fit also surviving. He's obviously a Schwarzenegger man. He resists pontificating that he's been led to believe that the meek may also inherit the Earth. Or else the sheep with inherit the Earth. Whichever.

Jee keeps repeating that he's the first person this season to win HoH and he keeps making scary statements about how proud Justin would be of him. It'd be nice if Julie Chen would let Justin back into the house for two seconds, let him pat Jee on the back, scratch him behind the ears and be done with it.

There are only three melancholy keys at the Eviction Ceremony. To the surprise of nobody at all, Erika and Jack are up for eviction. Jee offers the usual platitudes about having nothing personal against Jack and Erika and about viewing them as threats.

Jack vows not to campaign against Erika, but to campaign for himself. Erika, in turn, swears that she won't campaign against Jack, but instead will campaign for Erika. The distinction is a very fine line unless you happen to be in California this summer. If so, you'll know that you can be opposed to a recall and still vote for a candidate and that in elections, sometimes a candidate with the support of only 15 percent of the electorate is entitled to victory. In the immortal words of either Castro or anchorman Kent Brockman, Democracy doesn't work.

"Talk about predictable," Jun observes, echoing the sentiment of everybody at home.

The plan among the men seems to be to vote Erika out. She wins no friends by talking in a demented baby voice, lamenting her missing key. She sounds less like a child than like a witch trying to lure little children into her gingerbread house. Alison, the house's obvious woman-child, is swayed and determines that she trusts Erika more than Jack.

"If he's throwing the competitions, I don't want him on my team," Alison says. "If he's not throwing the competitions, then he just flat out sucks and he shouldn't be on my team anyhow."

Cue more complaints and bellyaching about peanut butter and jelly. I wonder how far you'd have to drive from the "Big Brother" house to find somebody who would be downright grateful to have peanut butter, jelly and spongy bread to eat every day.

There's a man in the backyard grinning and hiding garden gnomes. It's Marcellus from "Big Brother 3." We're glad to have him back for a number of reasons. He's more entertaining than anybody left in the house plus, plus he exposes for the thousandth time just how little diversity there was in the house this season. He's gone much too soon.

The housemates must destroy the legion of gnomes, trying to find hidden gold tickets. It's like "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" if the only way to gain entrance to the factory was to bash open Oompa Loompas for the hidden tickets in their innards. The winner gains a week of McDonalds meals.

The competition comes down to Jack and Jee. The HoH and Golden Veto holder wins yet again. He compares himself to the Yankees. Two weeks ago, I was fine with Jee. Now, as a Red Sox fan, I'm comfortable hating him. I'm not the only one. Jack and Erika and Alison agree that Jee's victory may have sealed his eviction in secret sauce.

Erika, Alison and Jun lie in bed talking trash about Jee as Jee sits in the HoH bedroom playing cards and talking about how he keeps winning because of his karma. He shares his first fast food meal with Jack, who notes that he really did need a break today.

"'Big Brother...' Sponsored by McDonalds..." a disembodied voice says, sending us off to commercial. Duh.

For their next luxury competition, the housemates make fun of Native Americans by donning face paint and Tarzan-style costumes. They're asked to bring out the article of clothing that the other housemates hate most. Erika's pink hat, Alison's white short-shorts, Jack's swishy sweatpants and Jun's mesh top (thank heavens) make the cut.

They then sacrifice the threads in bastardized ritual-style. Erika, on the verge of a psychic break, does a spastic dance while burning Jun's top. It's not really an exciting competition because at this point, nobody really cares about their ratty smelly garments. Their prize is a high-speed shopping spree at the "Big Brother" boutique. Robert, whose taste was already questionable, dubs their prize "so cool."

"They just let us go buckwild for about 90 seconds and we just tore it up," Alison says, describing their spree.

Jack, trying to save his hide, suggests to Erika that they should convince Jee to use the Veto and put Alison up. It seems like the normal frantic end-of-Tuesday strategizing that usually doesn't work.

At the Veto Ceremony, Erika and Jack make the usual pleas leaving it up to Jee to decide. Jee chooses to stands by his initial choice. Alison says he should have put her up. She calls herself "The Plague," which is an appropriate nickname if e'er we heard one.

An Eviction Nomination, a Food Challenge, a Luxury Challenge and a Veto Ceremony? That's a lot of excitement for one Tuesday night. The short-shorts may be gone, but The Plague remains in the "Big Brother" house.