Most of them are pseudo-news magazines, and they'll snag your TV time with some excessively groomed talking head with a sincerely concerned look peering into the camera/your soul stating, "Just when you thought it was safe to go grocery shopping with your children...shocking new evidence about the link between grocery shopping and toddler deaths!".
In your head you know it can't be anything real, but you love(d) your toddlers by golly, and even if your kids are now well into the double digit age range chronologically, you might watch just to see what dire fate you obviously barely escaped years ago when you hauled them to the grocery store with you every week.
And because the warning is just vague enough all the time until you see the piece you are thinking to yourself, "Great! I take my kids shopping with me. I feed my children food from the grocery store. What kind of careless monster am I?!"
Which has little or nothing to do with the 2008 Food Blog Awards, but really, that was my original point. The stories in those shows had little or nothing to do with whatever it was they were warning against. They just played upon our fears to get us to watch. And if I did watch? Once I heard what the "hazard" was I harbored resentment at being tricked, again.
If I didn't? I still harbored resentment because I don't enjoy the idea that people are being frightened needlessly. Especially parents with young children. With recent news stories of salmonella in peanut butter (Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Eat a PB&J!), the world is plenty frightening enough.
So yes, the 2008 Food Blog Awards. No hazards here real or imagined. Now after we have enjoyed (and you did enjoy something about yesterday I hope) the inaguaration of our new President, it is time to step back into the virtual booth and vote again, this time for your favorite Food Blogs, right here at the Well Fed Network.
Sidebar:To follow is what I enjoyed the most, aside from watching the First Daughters having fun with their Mom and Dad all day...the Prez and the First Lady dancing with obvious pleasure as thousands (millions?) watched with smiles on their faces... It felt like a wedding, really, and this time we were all invited.Unlike others who follow dozens of blogs daily, I only have a handful I check in on routinely, but even so I found several of my favorites listed among the categories. [ Best Blog by - Chef, City, Covering Drinks (Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic), Family/Kids, Group, Humor, Industry, Photography, Post, Rural, Theme, Writing, New Food Blog, Blog of the Year] Even if you are not a regular reader of the blogs nominated, there are links to them all and you may find a new favorite. Certainly being nominated and included in the finalists must mean the blogs featured are doing a lot of something that appeals.
So. Give the television a rest today and go vote. Even if you decide not to vote (what are you, a COMMUNIST!?!?!) you will find well written, well photographed blogs, well worthy of your time on the interweb.
Oh, that "dangers of shopping with toddlers" show I watched and seethed about afterwards? It was making a point, albeit an extremely overblown one, about the potential choking hazards that presented themselves when folks gave toddlers a grape in the produce section while shopping for groceries. Seriously. A grape.
A) Who gives their children unwashed produce anyway - especially grapes? and2) Our store gave kids under a certain age a free cookie. You think red blooded toddlers will happily be heading for the produce section for a pilfered grape when they knew they could get a cookie in the bakery section? Not my kids.
Nonetheless did I peel the grapes I gave my under three year old daughter from that point on? Sigh. Yes. For a while, I actually peeled every single grape that little girl ate because I loved her and didn't want her to either have to give up grapes until she was older or risk choking either one. Stupid show!
I am off to start steeping Marbled Eggs for Chinese New Year. I have no idea what they are supposed to taste like, but I'll let you know what I thought right here, so....stay tuned!
Now it is your turn. Do you have a pet peeve about television show teasers? Did you ever do anything differently just because of one of those warning shows you watched? Feel free to vent/confess in the comment section. We'll all feel better after.
2 comments:
i have an arse load of phobias from watching rescue 911, Dateline, 48 Hours, etc. as a kid. We didn't have cable so those were my nightly shows...
To this day I am horrified of swimming pool drains, dams, robbererer men/rapists, fires, and Peeping Toms (to name a FEW. )
Wow - you hit my other list topper in terms of "most resented peril exposed by a TV show".
That one about the swimming pool drains was BRUTALIZING and I actively seethed (especially as a pool owner with young children who loved to swim) for weeks after that show was aired.
Third on the list was an email actually that was all about how women should not wear overalls as they supposedly made you a prime target for rapists.
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