Every morning for the past several months, Jill's first act upon arising is to turn on a morning TV show. I think she usually picks the same one, but as I am unable to determine the differences between any of them, the specific morning show in question is irrelevant. I think it has Al Roker and Matt Lauer, if that helps. In any event, I hate morning shows, and always have, so each morning, when I hear the discord of the insipid segments echoing throughout our apartment, i bury myself under pillows in an attempt to shield myself from the horror.
This morning, however, the show was thankfully still on by the time I sat down at the computer to check work mail. If it hadn't been playing, I wouldn't have gotten a key clue into determining why people are such neurotic wrecks these days. The were playing day five of a segment entitled, "Ten Hidden House Dangers". Today's featured danger? Pool Drains. They can suck with an unequalled force, pinning your sweet, innocent, cartoon-watching child to the bottom of the pool, drowning them. Same for the bathtub. Luckily, they provided steps to preventing this sort of mishap, saving your baby from an unexpected and ignominious death. Tomorrow, they are going to profile the #4 top house danger you should worry about.
Awesome. Just what I was hoping for. Thousands of moms even more paranoid and annoying than they already are.
Another feature that was to follow was entitled, "What's in Your Bottled Water?" I saved myself from that one by taking a shower, in shower water which, I'm sure The Today Show wouldn't hesitate to tell me was filled with micro-organisms that could eat off my skin if the conditions were right. Later, they were going to tell you exactly why you should lose those extra five pounds, but only after your local news brought you a leading story about a possible terrorist attack on NYC.
Well, shit. I can't believe the source of our nation's ills was staring me in the face for so long. The ubiquitous American morning show! By the time the average American is putting on his tie, or finishing her orange juice, they've been bombarded with about 18 stories of terror meant to burrow into their mind on the drive to work. By the time they've sat down at their desk, they're so worked up their body is fighting to keep a panic attack at bay. Hence the huge amount of anti-anxiety drugs prescribed on a weekly basis.
Today's culture is trying to keep natural selection at bay. When I was a child, and I went swimming, I managed to avoid pool drain deaths. And that was without the help of The Today Show or my mom. I instinctively knew, hey, that's a pool drain, and i'm not going to stick my face in it until I die. Make no mistake, there were kids who died tragic deaths when I was young, and I'm guessing that The Today Show wouldn't have changed that. As kids, we knew, walking in front of cars going 100 mph was a bad idea, and drinking a bottle of iodine was an equally bad idea. Past that, who cares if i drank from the water hose? Or swam in a creek? If i didn't make it into adulthood, someone that was either luckier or smarter than me did, so the world was essentially working as planned.
What these shows have managed to do is make everyone so paranoid of everything, nobody can ever let down their guard. If The Today Show existed 100,000 years ago, caveman would be warned daily about "The Ten Things about Sabre-Tooth Tigers You Need To Know!" They'd walk around constantly afraid they'd get attacked by a mammoth, or step on a parasite that'd eat their organs, or die from a huge comet. Some fear to always keep them in a state of panic, raising stress and adrenaline levels.
Today, even when we go on vacation, we are worried about the water, the creatures in the beautiful ocean, undercooked food, robberies, traffic accidents .. Which is why there are five-star resorts in Sri Lanka - to make us feel safe, because outside the walls "reality" exists. And reality is dangerous. Vacations are all very stressful. We need to return ASAP so we can get back to the comfortable and protected bubble of our own home.
Jill doesn't know it yet, but morning shows are hereby banned from our house. Instead, we'll play a daily game of Russian Roulette before finishing our eggs and toast and heading off to work, where we will proceed to drink lots of bottle water and hang out next to pool drains with unnaturally strong pulls.