As I’ve mentioned before, I am a sucker for commercials. I might be the only person who does not fast-forward through them. Maybe it’s all the years I worked in marketing. I appreciate what it takes for a commercial to grab your attention, hold it and then make you do what it’s promoting. The only time commercials get the attention they deserve is during the Super Bowl, and then you have to watch football in between. Yuck!
My friend Mark posted a commercial from Canada that promotes families and friends eating together. No one says a word, but as “What the World Needs Now” plays in the background, a group of unrelated people come together in the hallway of an apartment building, rather haphazardly, to share a meal. The only message is, ‘Nothing Brings Us Together Like Eating.’ Just a few minutes before, everyone had been glued to their cell phones or computer screens. Yes, I am a sap, but if you haven’t seen the commercial, take a look on YouTube.
Growing up, we had a few hard-and-fast rules. One was that dinner was at 6 p.m. You had to be at the table, ready to pray and eat. If you weren’t, then you might not get dinner, depending on whether there were any leftovers. That’s just the way it was. My mother was not a short-order cook, so there were no special requests. If you didn’t like something, you tried to hide it in your baked potato skin so you wouldn’t get in trouble for not eating it. My mom’s cooking was good, so she has a starring role in the self-published Fitzgerald Family Cookbook. But more important than what we ate were the conversations we had. Over the years I have tried to paint my family as the Waltons, everyone willing to sacrifice so the other sibling could have something a little bit nicer. Well, that’s only true in my revised version of history. We were a typical family with the same arguments and disagreements as everyone else. Everyone went to school and most had part-time jobs, but the one time of day most of us were together was dinner. The kids handled the clean-up, and it was during those times, when my parents were watching TV and the radio was tuned to KXOK, that I learned about music and other things one needs to know to survive as a kid.
When I am at a restaurant, my heart breaks just a bit when I see people staring at their phones. They aren’t looking at one another or talking. What’s the point? So let’s steal Canada’s idea! Start with your family, since you can’t really make strangers come over for dinner. No pressure to cook. Takeout works fine. Just put away the phones, turn off the TV and talk. And then, parents, tell the kids to clean up after the meal and see what happens. Will we start talking to each other? Invite friends to join us for meals? Or maybe even a stranger? Or maybe I just will continue to get overly emotional about commercials. Yes, that’s likely the outcome. But hey, I tried!
Contact Patty at phannum@townandstyle.com.
