Following Procedure with a Cereal Drama

As a child of the 90's 70's, I'm not ashamed to admit that I watch way too much TV.  We were sat down when our homework was done as soon as we got home from school in front of the giant 35" color console 12" black-and-white screen with 276 5 channels (depending on the weather and how you stood on your head or moved around the room blocking the signal) to watch educational programming Ultra-Man... and my Mom would provide us with a delicious and nutritious dinner Hungry Jack TV dinner that she prepared herself popped in the oven for twenty minutes.  My favorite was the steak tartar pork and beans one because not only did you get little wieners in beans, but it also came with two desserts... baked apples and a triangular chocolate "cake".  Nothing was good good enough for us as far as my Mom was concerned, and she made it her mission to make sure that we had enough protein and vitamins sugar in us to make it long enough through getting our homework done, but not long enough to have us hyper while she was watching her progrums later that evening.  We used to watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, Falcon Crest and The Carol Burnett Show, which was my Mom's favorite.  I swear, I thought she was going to piss her pants bust a gut laughing.  She would knit smoke Pall Mall's all evening while my Dad oiled our baseball mitts snored in his electric easy chair and my brother and I sat quietly helping each other with our homework and discussing our day at school pulled each other's hair and kicked each other upside the head.  Yes, we were the model 70's family... a page right out of a Norman Bates journal Rockwell picture book.

I always fancied the procedural drama where the show takes place in court of law or in a crime scene.  It makes me feel smartical when I could figure out 'who dunnit' before it was revealed.  Perhaps the most watched in the history of TV was who shot J.R. in the long-running, critically-acclaimed and recently-revamped Dallas.  I always wanted to be a Ewing... mostly Pam because she had that zippy Mercedes and got to sleep with Bobby.  I could faintly smell the aroma of oil on me as I religiously watched and pretended to be the long-lost cousin or something in a 7 episode arc. 

Nowadays, I'm a sucker for the dramas and I tape them all.  The Good Wife and Revenge are my favorites.  Long-gone are the days of setting up the VCR, making sure that you don't tape over another progrum you haven't seen yet... and God forbid the plastic tabs were poked out or you didn't have the TV turned on the right channel or the VCR set to channel 3 or 4... you might not have gotten to see the show, forever lost without OnDemand.  My DVR is filled so much every night with shows that my watching overflows into the next morning with a good bowl of cereal with my hair still up in curlers.  It feels like I'm home when I'm watching my progrums, checking in with my family and friends.  Often times I feel much better about my life when there's so much drama going on in my TV family's lives but, as a child with a huge imagination and longing to travel and see the world, it lets me live a little, if only for 42 minutes or so... and at least now I am much more aware of what you can make out of a paper clip and some baking soda to save the world... the importance of a good shoulder pad in a dress... and to watch out for the maid... because it's always the maid that's the killer every time... anyone who's seen Jessica Fletcher in action knows that.