Length of Shower: At least in the shower you can't tell if I'm crying --There I was the other night sitting in my most comfortable chair watching a series of good shows on my TV. Just me being an average American guy. Beer in hand, empty plate of dinner at my side, stomach happy and full while characters of all shapes and sizes paraded across my screen to entertain me. Every once in a while a line of commercials would interrupt my laughter and I would try to ignore big business' attempts at making me buy more than I needed. My life was good.
But then out of the blue came a Hallmark commercial. I remember soft piano music, a young girl frolicking in a field, an old man and I'm pretty sure there was a puppy in there someplace. I don't remember a lot of the specifics about the commercial because of this strange watery substance streaming down my chiseled, manly face. Accompanying that substance was this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach followed shortly by the most frighting thing out of the entire experience: a loss for the desire and taste of beer. How could this happen?
By the time I had recovered and realized I was bawling over something that had long since gone off of my screen, I had a moment. I sat in my living room with a new realization about what TV, and more specifically, advertisements could do. They could cause an emotional and visceral reaction. Who knew?
Now, that wasn't the first time I have been ambushed by an emotional commercial coming out of no where. When I was a kid growing up my mother would put the Weather Channel on our TV in the morning as we ran around getting ready for school. One of those mornings I stopped and watched a Folger's commercial. It was a Christmas commercial (already a soft spot in my heart, even back then) that my mom and I share a fondness for to this day because we were both caught unaware. The commercial starts with a wintery scene in front of a house where a young man waves goodbye to a car pulling away as he says, "Merry Christmas" in a light voice because you can tell it is just about sun rise. As he enters the house you see a little girl welcome him and he says "Hi" but also whispers, "Shhhh, I know how we can get everyone else awake." Then you see everyone else in the house is waking up to the smell of Folger's coffee. Down in the kitchen all you see is this mysterious person and young girl in her PJ's preparing the coffee. Then you see everyone come down the stairs at once lead by the mother of the house who has a strange look on her face. Then you see this handsome 20-something guy come out of the kitchen with the coffee and place it in front of the most perfect Christmas tree as the mother rushes to hug him and says, "Oh, Peter!! You're home!" He had snuck home and surprised the whole family on Christmas. When the commercial was over and the weather was back on our TV my mother and I glanced at each other and then snickered at the sight of tears in each others eyes. It is one of my favorite and most important memories in the relationship between my mother and me. (click here to see the commercial)
Who knows, maybe that's why I was crying the other night, or maybe it was a hundred other reasons. It doesn't really matter why I was crying so long as I was touched, and that is important. As long as there are commercials out there that can, in 30 seconds or less, remind us of something important in our lives I retain faith in the world for some odd reason. I feel like if a company, no matter how big, can take the time and money to make a simple commercial with enough care to remind the world of what is important, no matter what they are trying to sell, then I continue to have faith in humanity. Call me a "softy" or "wimpy" or call me whatever you want, but in the end you have to admit that you have cried a few times too...and didn't it somehow make you feel good? I bet it did, and that's not so bad to be reminded out of the blue of what is truly important in life...and one of those is good relationships!
So call or e-mail someone you miss today. Remind them of how much they mean to you and tell them the next time they see a sappy commercial to think of you and return the favor. Spreading love is always a good thing!
and sniff**
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