Thank Heavens for Cheese

Here's a story for you: High school big-man-on-campus gets the lead in the school play. His co-lead is the daughter of the local preacher, a Bible-loving girl with a long dress and long hair. They fall in love cause she sings him a new-agey pop song on stage. His cool friends abandon him. They look at stars together. Then she tells him she has leukemia and will soon die. He is heartbroken. He sits with her in the hospital, where he learns his estranged father has paid the girl's medical bills. He asks her to marry him, which she does, and then she dies.

Cheesy, right? You may recognize this as the plot of "A Walk to Remember", the 2002 movie staring Mandy Moore. Well, I watched it tonight on the "Family" channel. And the truth is, I sobbed through the whole thing. 

Since I've been living in my suburban apartment, temporarily husbandless, and without my TiVo hooked up, I've become very familiar with evening cable TV programing. I love the act of watching TV. I love everything about it: lazing on the couch, short bits of mindless entertainment perfectly suited to my end-of-day mommy brain. But in case any of you were unsure, television these days pretty much stinks. Sharing the TV horror stories we have in common is a favorite pastime for me and Elliot on our long-distance phone calls. It helps to bond over the tedium of late-night cooking shows, the cruelty of fashion shows, the explicit sex in prime time dramas. TV, I love you! How come you you let me down?

Or perhaps I've become overly sensitive as I think about the world my girls are growing up in and what kind of entertainment I want in my house. I am starting to worry that nothing except the most carefully selected movies, dutifully researched and ordered ahead of time on Netflix, would fit the bill of a satisfying night in front of the tube. What a pain! That's no fun.

So although tonight's find was not particularly sophisticated or artistic and the story was Velveeta, it was such a delight to stumble on something that was intentionally sweet and completely innocuous. My heart isn't completely calloused against TV yet, and all my sardonic fashion and cooking shows haven't turned me cold to a sappy love story. Thank heavens.

***

PS. I have just laughed for 30 straight minutes watching Drew Barrymore on SLN. My banner TV night continues!

Comments

[Michelle]

I love that movie and freely admit to it. But TV has never been able to win over my heart. I'd much rather snuggle up with a good book. Which I'm going to go do right now.