AMidlothian woman switched families for a week, and tonight, America gets to watch.

Donna Deekens, who runs a tea party business, traded places with a tattooed female powerlifter from New York for an episode of ABC's "Wife Swap." The hourlong show airs tonight at 8, locally on WRIC-Channel 8.

"Contrast is what they're looking for," Deekens said of the show's producers, "and they got it with this one."

She described the experience as "a wild ride . . . quite an adventure."

It was an adventure she did not seek. The show's producers contacted Deekens, having found her Web site -- www.virginiateaparties.com -- and apparently felt they could build a show around someone who runs a company called Teapots, Treats & Traditions. Deekens puts on tea parties, primarily for children, and along with cups of tea and dainty sandwiches serves helpings of manners, etiquette and social graces.

She and her husband, Bill, a mortgage banker, had not seen "Wife Swap" until they were invited to apply to participate.

"It was something kind of scary, and something kind of exciting," said Deekens, the mother of two sons, Brent, 23, who was at college when the show was shot in April, and Greg, 18, a senior at James River High School. "We looked at it as . . . trying something completely different. I always think it's a good thing to learn from other people."

In this case, the other people were the McCaslins from Tribes Hill, N.Y., who live in an old elementary school and one-time mental hospital they've converted into a powerlifting gym. Their business is called Iron Asylum Gym.

Sandi McCaslin, who can lift more than 300 pounds and has a tattoo on her leg that reads, "Whatever It Takes," spent more than a week in the Deekens' suburban Midlothian home setting up tea parties. Meantime, Donna Deekens was in New York, learning all about the gym business and trying to persuade the McCaslins' two powerlifting daughters to become more feminine.

"There definitely were some tense moments," said Deekens, who was a theater major in college and worked for 20 years as the Legendary Santa's Snow Queen at Miller & Rhoads.

Looking back, Deekens said the experience was a lot of work -- extensive medical and psychological testing, a camera in her face from the moment she awoke, up to 14 hours a day of shooting -- but she found it rewarding, and not just because of the undisclosed honorarium participating families receive.

And her manners are still intact.

This week, she sent a basket of chocolates to the McCaslins.
Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or wlohmann@timesdispatch.com.