Columnist Susan Snyder: ABC uses Vegas for swap meet

Thursday, June 2, 2005 | 8:16 a.m.

How would you like to trade in your husband and kids for 10 days?

The catch: You have to trade them for someone else's.

The suited ones at ABC are looking for Las Vegas moms with families who are willing to trade places with other moms for their "Wife Swap" television show. (Details on who to contact and how are at the bottom.)

For those who haven't tuned into this oddly unreal reality series, it revolves around the trials and tribulations of two women who trade families for 10 days. They live each other's lifestyles for the first five days. Then, they inflict their own lifestyles and house rules on their guest families the remaining five days.

Women learn what it's like to walk in another's shoes, and families learn how good they have it with the old mom.

Of course, it wouldn't be any fun at all if the two women had remotely similar lifestyles. One particularly entertaining episode involved a driving, urban, schedule freak trading places with an Earth-mother type who home-schooled the kids and lived in the woods in a house with no electricity.

You get the idea.

And where do ABC officials think they will find the opposites to beat all opposites?

Las Vegas.

"We're looking for families that scream, 'Las Vegas,' " Heather Teta, casting researcher for the show, said Wednesday. "We're looking for parents who work in the gaming industry -- cocktail waitresses, dealers, casino managers, people who run a wedding chapel on the Strip."

Don't fret. The swapped mom will not be set to dealing baccarat at Treasure Island, although she might go there for a day to experience the working environment and get a taste for the actual duties.

But jeopardizing one's real job is not part of the gig, Teta said. And although it isn't advertised on air, families who participate are given a generous "financial honorarium" to compensate for their time and to offset any economic hardships endured because Mom doesn't work for 10 days.

Teta said they are looking for as many Las Vegas families as they can get, figuring there will be plenty of opportunities to match them with fun swaps from other states.

Of course, this could present Las Vegas' tourism promoters with a dilemma: What happens when the rest of the world finds out that we are, in fact, just like them?

After all, at the end of the day dealers and dancers still have to grocery shop, do the laundry, get the kids to school and pick up the mail.

Some glamour. But Teta and ABC aren't worried. In fact, that only adds to the Las Vegas mystique.

"We're looking to capture the excitement (of Las Vegas) that not many people know much about. And most of us (probably) have a wrong idea about how their lives work," Teta said.

Though "Wife Swap" typically uses families in which both parents are living in the same home, single-mom families are welcome to apply. All contestants must have at least one child living at home, and all must be at least 4 years old.

To apply, e-mail heather.teta@rdfusa.com or call Teta, (212) 404-1428.

Give it a shot. The worst that can happen is some woman from Peoria will discover kids' messes and laundry look pretty much the same in neon.