WAG - Being Reunited With the TV
Over Christmas or Spring Break, my days are filled with daytime television. I’m not sure if it is out of overcompensation for the lack of television viewed while in college, or latent laziness manifesting itself, but I would spend a lot of time out on the couch.
I try no to get hooked on soaps. It seems I get snagged every couple of years for a season (I seem to be a 3-year rotation). It’s a disease; I’ll admit. Usually I’m only interested in a single plot line, which is visited but once or twice during the course of the program, and have to muddle through ridiculous stories and poorer acting. And when the end of summer comes, there’s some wicked withdrawals one has to go through. One finds themselves thinking, “I wonder what Stefano is up to now?” or “Why can’t Bo and Hope EVER seem to stay together?”
My mother long ago taught me to watch the movies Soapdish and Tootsie to help get over my addictions by watching the movies that poke fun at how incredibly stupid the shows are in theory – let alone practice.
I just love the exchange in Soapdish about the reappearance of a formerly dead character that was meant to be beyond resurrection.
After the writer recounts how they decapitated a character to prevent his return, she is told to say they just sewed the head back on.
Such scenes, which aren’t too much removed from the nonsense that appears on the tv screen would help snap be back into reality.
Of course, there’s no such fix for game show addiction.
The Price is Right has long held me in a grip. This is due to its lack of competition in timeslot. One may want to flip past the Springer/Ricki/Maury/etc. Slut and/or Man-ho of the day, but Bob Barker often ends up looking like the classiest show before lunch.
I’ve often found there’s more reality in these openly staged shows than the snazzy, staged shows that hope you ignore the fact they’re obviously staged.
The pained look on a guy’s face when he’s outbid on a product by a single dollar or an old lady’s expression of disbelief when she finds her showcase includes a guitar, jukebox, and a speedboat display more genuine emotion than you’d see in most shows.
Of course, I don’t get to see such things nowadays. Things are very different over Summer Vacation.
Instead of being a bum by day, I have to get up and punch the clock (actually, there’s no clock to punch, but I do have to denote what time I start work in a handy dandy notebook). Working for the Missouri Department of Conservation, rather than Wal-Mart or Sullivan C-2 School District, requires me to work more hours earlier in the day.
I often got the late shift at the garden center or was home just after lunch with the school’s summer reading program.
Now, my mornings are gone; but my evenings are free. It’s not a bad trade, other than one has to share the couch.
But I don’t start work until tomorrow. So for now, the couch and the remote control are uncontestedly mine.
I’d write more, but I want to see what Stefano is up to now…
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