Reality TV and Ruby Red Squirt

I like watching TV.  I don't get to watch as often as I'd like, but I really enjoy television.  I also like drinking pop.  I do get to do that almost any time I want.
And what's wrong with either of these little non-guilty pleasures I have in my life?  Nothing, as far as I'm concerned, but for most of my 32 years, people wave tried to steer me away from an excessive amount of either of these two pleasures.

My sister Karen occasionally reminds me of the story where she scooped herself a bowl of ice cream at about 8:00 one Saturday morning.  As a nine-year-old, who still had to follow the rules of what a nine-year-old must do, I protested.  "You can't eat ice cream for breakfast!"

Karen calmly stated, "I can eat whatever I want for breakfast; I'm an adult."

The fact of the matter was, Karen was working the overnight shift at CVN (Cable Value Network), answering phones.  Not only was it dinner time for her, but she certainly deserved it after a long night of taking phone orders for gaudy jewelry and kitchen appliances that were sure to break, only a month after the warranty expired.

Pop was always alleged to be rotting my teeth.  This was the first scare tactic to try to keep me away from drinking too much pop; it rots your teeth.  And maybe it did when I was a kid.  After all, I believe I've tallied over a dozen fillings.  But to be fair, we didn't have a lot of other sweets in the house.  Actually, we didn't have any snacks like Oreos or Ho-Hos in the house, and only occasionally did we have any salty snacks, which were solely comprised of the generic box of "Potato Chips"; in the black and white box.  You were more likely to find a leprechaun in our cupboards than a Keebler elf.
However, we usually had ice cream and we did have a lot of pop.  I think it's probably because my dad loves ice cream and pop like I do.  Because we were perpetually on a budget, we had brands of pop like "Elf" and "Wildwood"; we never had anything like Coca-Cola or 7Up.  Still, my brother and I drank that Wildwood by the gallon.

Eventually Dad was diagnosed with diabetes and Diet Rite and Diet Mountain Dew became the norm in our house.  I was a bit older, and shied away from the diet pop.
Even before the change to diet, I always felt like pop was the boogey-man of beverages.  They warned us about it in health class.  They tried to scare us at the dentist.  Even my parents got in the act when my brother and I would down a case of Wildwood Black Cherry in under a week.  But I liked it so much!  I guess I've always been fond of things that are bad for me, but drinking a can or two of pop every day didn't seem that bad.  I certainly didn't feel bad.

In my 20s, I started drinking diet pop too.  I haven't been diagnosed with diabetes: I think I started drinking diet because my metabolism started to even out, and a three-filling trip to the dentist scared me into it (only to find out later that the phosphorus and carbonation was just a guilty as the sugar).  I flirted with Diet Pepsi first, then Diet Dr. Pepper.  I've stuck with the good doctor for about eight years at this point.  I still love an ice-cold can of regular Pepsi on a hot day, and have expanded my love to ginger ale, Cherry 7Up, expensive root beer (like Weinhart's or Hanson's) and even Ruby Red Squirt.  Hell, I was one of the few people who liked Crystal Pepsi.  I still prefer, and look for, diet pop when I can, but I will admit that I am thrilled that I can get a 44 oz. regular Dr. Pepper at McDonalds for $1.07 every summer.

I have had an on-again, off-again love affair with television for years.  In my early memories of childhood, I remember watching the original Spiderman animated series, The Dukes of Hazzard and The Superfriends.  Later came the era of selling toys via animated series:  Transformers, G.I. Joe, Voltron, Thundercats, M.A.S.K., He-Man...  I know I had action figures from all of these programs, and spent hours in front of the TV after school absorbing all the cliche story lines, ridiculous sub-plots, inane jokes and bad animation.  But I couldn't get enough.  Every season meant new action figures for existing shows, and new series with new action figures.  I had to have more; I needed more.  There's a reason our government put a stop to animated series tied in with toys.

Eventually, I grew to love MTV more than cartoons, where the material was often more cliche, ridiculous and inane.  My friends and I watched MTV for hours a day.  At night, I would watch Growing Pains, Full House and other awful family sit-coms, as well as Cheers and The Cosby Show.  When it got late, I was stuck watching Newhart, Night Court, Moonlighting and L.A. Law with my dad.  All of these shows were way over my head, but I didn't have any choice in the matter:  I could watch shows I didn't like, or I could do homework or go to bed.  I suffered through.  As I grew older, Dad and I would sit down together and watch Law and Order, Northern Exposure and eventually, My So-Called Life.  Either I grew smart and mature enough to understand good television drama, or Dad had vetted me well enough to eliminate any last hints of whining to watch Step By Step or Family Matters.
I had arrived.

After I earned my driver's license, and during most of my college decade, I still loved drinking pop.  I exclusively worked in restaurants, where fountain pop was free.  However, I was rarely at home and never had the money to pay for cable (much less, a TV that worked), and my roommates and I usually had service just long enough to get it hooked up, pay the first month and never pay the bill again until it was disconnected.  For a couple of years, I had a roommate responsible enough to make us pay the cable bill every month, so I caught some TV here-and-there.  I remember a lot of college hockey (including the Gopher's last National Championship), Desert Storm live coverage and the occasional viewing of Varsity Blues.
I was still in love with TV then, and I will still watch just about anything.  I've seen the movie Varsity Blues on HBO, at least a half-dozen times, and can quote a few memorable lines.  I have seen every episode of Lost, Weeds and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy.  In fact, I have fallen into the reality TV trap.  I have had brief love-affairs with Inside The Actor's Studio and The Restaurant; I have shared my wife's obsession with Bravo's Flipping Out; I can even sit through an entire episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta--but just barely.  Whether it's a melodramatic, teen-directed, football movie or a gay-friendly, man-grooming, reality series, there's just something great about seeing a story unfold.

Teachers always warned against too much television.  Parents have been trained to believe that even educational TV like Sesame Street or Dora should be limited.  We used to tell people that it ruins your eyesight to sit too close to the TV.  As an English teacher--a man with a degree in writing--I think people expect me to loathe the visual medium and think that I will promote only literature and reading at all costs.  But, while reading has many advantages over visual storytelling, it is captivating for me to see how the producers, directors and editors can create conflict and rising and falling action--not to mention, characters--out of reality TV and poorly written sit-coms.  I love the characters that television writers can create in a 22 minute pilot episode; I applaud the skill in that kind of writing.  I love the depth a story can have in this medium, while at the same time, how what you don't show is so much more important in television.  And I love the character Barney, on How I Met Your Mother, as well as Californication's Hank Moodey.  I have yet to find characters as equally awful and lovable as these, in any book.

The pop is not rotting my teeth and the TV is not ruining my eyes.  The pop and the TV are two little pleasures I have; two things that help relieve a bit of my daily stress.  And like my sister said all those years ago, I am an adult.  I have been an adult for years, but I now, I am a career-pathed, mortgaged, veterinary billed, married adult.  I'll drink four cans a day and watch five hours, and not feel a splinter of guilt about it.
And I have eaten ice cream for breakfast too.