TV

[cosmolinguist]

Does anyone else feel they were slighted because their life wasn't like that of the people on TV?

On TV, there were good-looking friends around who were really excited about playing Hungry Hungry Hippos or Trouble with you. I had just a brother who was usually happier calling me names or smashing his Hot Wheels into each other. On TV, people can actually sometimes get the bits out of the Operation guy without setting off the buzzer and going into a rage that ended in the battery being forcibly removed and the little white bits of plastic—the funny bone, the charley horse, the wish bone—being strewn all over the basement.

On TV, you got to eat cereal with the cereal box next to you on the table. I rarely even got to see cereal boxes. My mom kept—and, indeed, still keeps—our cereals in tupperware containers, about the size and shape of a cereal box but with a little flap that opens at the top, out of which no cereal will come after the first little avalanche (it's one of those "Nature abhors a vacuum" things), so you have to poke around with your fingers to get some more out, if the container is very full or if you tip it up too excitedly at first. And the cereal was always Part of a Complete Breakfast at the end, with the juice and toast and all. The closest we got to that, I think, was the time my brother put orange juice on his Cheerios one day when we were out of milk.

On TV, kids found things to do with Cabbage Patch dolls. I had some of those, and I never did. Of course, kids also found things to do with those Barbies whose hair would turn pink when you put cold water on it, or who had rollerblades that shot off sparks when you rolled them along the floor. I had those too. I was only allowed to use Barbie's rollerblades outside, and eventually the hair just stayed pink all the time no matter the dampness or temperature. I was never really a doll person, anyway.

On TV, all the Happy Meal toys were brought together, by half a dozen kids smiling at each other over their french fries, to make the Super Happy Meal Toy. Well, okay, even watching that one I knew better: not only was I aware that you'd all get the same toy because they wanted to make you come back every week if you wanted to Collect Them All, but also I was sure that if by some chance all six of you got a different Transformer, there'd be such a fight over who got to actually assemble the Super Toy that it'd devolve into a bloodbath, or at least a ketchupbath, from which someone's mother would eventually have to extract everyone, returning the toys willy-nilly, not caring at all that your toy had been Optimus Prime and you didn't want to be stuck with Sideswipe.

Most of all, though, on TV, families were practically unrecognizable! It's not just that they were prettier, or had more amusing problems, than anyone I really knew. It wasn't just that people sometimes cheered when someone came through their front door (no one ever comes through our front door at all! ... not even us, come to think of it; we always use the back door). On TV, people talked. They had conversations about those amusing problems of theirs, with their parents, kids, siblings, whatever. Sometimes they even hugged. It seemed really weird. But it also seemed nicer than my family, where no one ever talks or hugs.

I am not a kid now. I don't eat cereal much any more; I don't like fast food; as of the past few yars I am no longer given dolls for Christmas or my birthday. But sometimes, dumb as it is, I still wish I had one of those families that talked about stuff and maybe even hugged occasionally.

Comments

[comradexavier.livejournal.com]

But I've been through your front door! It was open at your high school graduation. But alas, I can't say that anyone cheered.

[mllesarah.livejournal.com]

I never felt this while growing up, as we didn't have a TV. I identified with Laura Ingalls Wilder, more so than with any of the Full House girls. I did have a secret desire to get applause, it just never occured to me that entering any room could result in it.

[cosmolinguist]

I watched too much TV, but I read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, too, and Anne of Green Gables (I really wanted to be her for a while) and stuff like that. And I envied stuff about their lives, too.

[cieo.livejournal.com]

Sounds like the Full House years found another victim. I grew up with that show, and for a long time I kind of assumed that that's how everyone really did live (don't laugh). It's not like I had any point of comparison, since my parents never let me go to anyone else's house.

[cosmolinguist]

I won't laugh. I can't! I was never at anyone else's house either: I live on a farm and I had few-to-no friends when I was growing up (and my best friend from kindergarten to third grade lived in a family that actually was like Full House; third grade was the end of our friendship because she started being homeschooled then).

cereal boxes

[salaryman.livejournal.com]

we always had all the cereal boxes on the table, and I read everything on all six sides, and still remember weird things that turned up on specific boxes, like an Archies 45 RPM record pressed into the side of a Sugar Crisp box.

I resented TV families for different reasons, mainly, because they seemed like a little lesson telling us all how to behave, that we should be amusing and vapid all the time.

thanks for a great post,

s

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Of course, once we're married, you'll be in *my* family. And we do talk, sometimes, and there have been known to be hugs involved...

[cosmolinguist]

This is true. Your dad occasionally says "Love you!" before "Bye!" when he's talking to me on the phone, and even though I know it's just a habit of his, I think he's already beat the number of times my own parents have told me that. :-)

I know your family drives you crazy, but I also know I'm definitely getting the better deal as far as the in-laws go.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

I love that icon - best photo I've seen of you, I think.

[cosmolinguist]

I uploaded it about three seconds ago, so it'd figure that you'd already have commented upon it. I was just thinking that it was kind of stupid and I didn't know if I wanted to look at it for a few months until I happen to have another one of me.

There were a few pictures that were basically just like this; I picked this picture because I like the eyebrow in it. And the little smile. I guess it looks more like how I feel than most pictures of me do.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I ruled at Operation! Still do. I pitied the fools on TV who always set it off. But I did sometimes envy their array of Transformers.

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

I don't recall ever envying TV families. I do, however, recall being grateful that I never had to deal with those kinds of stupid misunderstandings that were all sitcom families ever seemed to have. So really, I guess I was grateful I wasn't stupid. Or something like that.

[hexar-le-saipe.livejournal.com]

I mostly feel bad that my life isn't like The Jetsons.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh yes. I'm still bitter about not living like The Jetsons. This is the 21st century! The robot maids and flying cars should be here by now!

[(Anonymous)]

But, was not the reason The Jetsons lived in houses on high towers was because the air below was hopelessly contaminated, possibly the fall-out of a nuclear holocaust? I always figured that the Jetsons were an upper or upper-middle class family with the privilege to live in a clean, ultra-modern house--complete with robotic servants at their beckon call--while a little-seen terrestrial and potentially cannibalistic sub-class of man toiled, fought, and starved in the engulfing dust clouds and wastelands below.

In short, the Jetsons were elitist and clearly had no social conscience. And I don't remember them ever giving hugs.

[hexar-le-saipe.livejournal.com]

They gave hugs (admittedly it usually involved George being hugged after Judy lifted money out of his wallet, but still...)

But, was not the reason The Jetsons lived in houses on high towers was because the air below was hopelessly contaminated, possibly the fall-out of a nuclear holocaust?

You know, I never got that from the Jetsons... maybe it was just me.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

It was heavily implied, I think...

[hexar-le-saipe.livejournal.com]

I always assumed that it was simple overcrowding.