I will be the first to admit that while growing up, I would make fun of my mom when she would cry during commercials. Or during episodes of Little House on the Prairie. I thought she was bonkers. I continued to think so up until the time I gave birth to my babies. Somehow, someway, the epidurals must have loosened my tear ducts. Now I, too, find myself moved by unrealistic life portrayed on TV.
But not this time.
Maybe you have already seen it...the commercial of a soldier, obviously deployed, sitting in a darkened tent surrounded by his sleeping troops. All was quiet as he reached under his bed to open the Christmas gift sent by his young son. The camera shows a book...maybe a beloved Christmas tradition which the father read to the child in previous years. Only this time, the book contains a recording of the child reading to the father. As the silence is broken by the sweet young voice, obviously a new reader, the camera then shows the father's face and we see pride, as he listens to his son breeze through some words, and struggle to figure out others. And we can also see regret, as he cannot be there to witness this new skill in person.
Oh this may get some of you, but not me or my husband. As we watched this commercial together last night, neither one of us said anything. When it was done, I looked at him and said, "Seriously? They must have edited out the part where his fellow soldiers, now awake, begin throwing boots and yelling at him to a) turn out the light and b) shut the kid up."
"Word," my husband replied. "Should have been during the day if they wanted it to be realistic. Because no one would or should do that at night with his dudes sleeping around him."
Ahh, but having the deployed father open the gift during the day would not have set the proper stage for the tradition of reading with a young child at bedtime. That requires a darkened and quiet "mood." A "mood" just not feasible during the hustle and bustle of a typical day of those deployed overseas, living in a tent with others. But a realistic scene would not have women crying at home, watching with sympathy or empathy, or have them running to the store to purchase the book.
Oh, America...you do prey on our emotions, don't you? But if you want to get this chick, next time be a tad more realistic. Some of us know better.
