Misadventures of the Bolden Clan

Why TV Is a Bad Thing to Impressionalbe Youth

I have already discussed how commercials leads to things like the Slip 'N Slide incident but let me keep up the theme for a moment more. Let me divulge how television has nearly been the death of me countless times.

I once locked myself outside of my house in the middle of the night because the A-Team had convinced me that I could easily pick the lock using one of my mom's hair pins. I even upped the ante, not wanting myself to chicken out, I went and locked the other doors so I could not just run around. Just so you know, that Face guy is a liar. He never once did it. It was something called special effects.The night was not particularly cold, but it was dark in that way that night likes to be. I am sure it was full of wolves. I had to knock for awhile to get back in. I remember my mom coming to the door with a sleepy look on her face and her hair filled with curlers and ironically with the same hair pins that I was currently being failed by. She strangely didn't ask any questions.

The A-Team also showed people always walking away unharmed from a wreck no matter how bad (including falling helicopters, mind you). I am just glad that a hair pin showed me the way before I did something really dumb.

In a lot of ways, that was not as dumb as the time I tried to base an argument with my family off a life lesson from the Cosby Show. Now that was really stupid. They even called me on it. Turns out if you ever want to win an argument with a southern family, then All in the Family is going to probably go over better, that or the Nathan Bedford Forrest Hour (I kid, I kid!)

I lept from the house once using a sheet, because they do stuff like that all the damned time on TV shows. You know what I mean, the quick and easy parachute. In the shows, it always billows out perfectly and people set down on the ground with so little of an impact that most think they are still flying. It looks glorious. It doesn't work. From this, I conjecture that umbrellas don't work (Mary Poppins shouldn't lie to children) nor shirts (Looney Toons shouldn't either). Fact is, and this is the rub, pretty much nothing works except a big old parachute and that is only going to work if you have room for it to work. Good news is that my house wasn't that far to fall from.

Which is good, because I also tried to leap off the roof unto a mattress.

That REALLY doesn't work. In fact, it sort of like the mattress is not even there at all. The good news is, you have a place to rest up while your legs are healing up.

I tried eating raw egg that was unbeaten because I saw it in a TV show. Well, I saw them eating a beaten raw egg, but I figured the middle man was unnecessary. To shorten the story up, let's just say that raw egg can be about two feet outside of your lips and about two feet down your throat in one long continous string at the same time. And, you can't chew it up either. You have to just sort of swallow and vomit, which is not easy. Nor something I ever want to try again.

I though the point of one show was to tell me that people DO get pregnant by kissing, and so stuck with that for awhile. Though I did learn that spraying paint in someone's eyes is a bad thing and that was a lesson I learned.

I was also taught that rigging a string trap to cause flour to hit your mom in the head was a funny thing.This trap did not work, in that the string was pulled taut, causing my dad (dang him) to trip and fall and ruin my hilarity. He got mad at me without even trying to understand.

TV also told me that cool houses have trap doors and secret rooms. Ours did not. I saw my dad build most of it, so I knew better. Still I had to try. Sigh. I never quite lived down the lack of pirate treasure hidden in an upstairs closet.

I did, however, learn that Blossom was so full of life lessons it was not quite worth watching.

I guess it taught me a few things. Win some. Lose some.