Shop ’til You Drop the Pretensions

One of the least heralded but most influential additions to our apartment growing up was when my Mom bought our first set of TV stands, the miniature tables that come in sets of four and fold up conveniently where they can be stored together without taking up a great deal of space in the corner of a room. At around 6:00, I would unfold them and put them out once my Mom had finished preparing a dinner that often consisted of something along the lines of Corn Flake™ chicken and green beans from Green Giant. We sat on the living room couch at our respective tables and tuned the television over to Lifetime where we’d watch Supermarket Sweep on a nightly basis.

Supermarket Sweep was a game show consisting of two-person teams of relatives or friends that would compete over who had the greatest command of the products within the grocery store. The show took place inside an actual grocery store with the teams answering questions about brands names and slogans in a spot a little bit off to the side of the registers. After this came a round where one member of each team took a shopping wagon through the aisles of the market and had around three minutes to fill their cart(s) with the most valuable groceries they could get a hold of. Their partner merely cheered from back at base as they hustled through the store choosing the ideal path toward stocking up with high ticket items throughout the store. Baby formula and giant hams were staples of any winning Supermarket Sweep team’s wagon.

The pairs of players on each team also wore solid-colored and often ill-fitting matching sweatshirts that by most people’s standards would be fair to call “awful.” But there seemed to be something in subjecting themselves to the joint torture of appearing in these rags on what was in all likelihood these people’s biggest moment in the “spotlight” that really solidified the bond between the teammates. Friends came across as “besties” and couples genuinely did seem “happily married.” No other moment highlighted this better than the run through the store as one teammate frantically pushed a cart filled with heavy meats as the other would watch on patiently and yell to their partner things like, “Don’t forget the diapers!”

Without those stands, my Mom and I would have been robbed of the nightly pleasure we took in all this and in all likelihood been forced into a traditional setup of sitting together at a dining room table. Every now and then, you’ll read about a study that declares how families who eat dinner together on a regular basis tend to have healthier relationships. In addition to that, these studies will typically specify that when they say “eat together,” it’s implied or even said outright that these family meals should have the television turned off in order to maximize communication. Never in reports of these studies though have I seen a footnote that says, “Yes, in most cases, this setup we described would be ideal. But we do understand that if yr family simply consists of a teenage boy and a middle-aged woman, conversations are generally going to be pretty stilted. So we’ll toss you a bone: it’s probably best for you guys to check out what’s on basic cable.”

 

Tags: television for women