Tuesday, August 5, 2008

I want to be a tv commercial mom

I've decided that in order to be a good mom and wife, I should be like the women in commercials. My thoughts about this all started a couple of weeks ago when we were up in Kissimmee to go to Disney. The evening before we had the tv on and I glanced up from my computer in time to watch a commerical for Lysol spray. I was quite amazed at the "mom" in the commercial. First of all, I was surprised to see her response when her three sons run into her kitchen with who knows WHAT ALL all over them. Now, I would be yelling, "HEY, I JUST MOPPED THE FLOOR!" but not commercial mom. She's happy - yes delighted - to see her filthy kids running into her pristine kitchen -there are big hugs and kisses for all of them as they spread their contamination ALL OVER the overly clean kitchen. You see, she knows she doesn't need to get bent out of shape because she has got LYSOL disinfecting spray on her side. Oh to have that kind of grace and patience - but no - I get all frustrated when we have messes as I go to put the sponge away and hang the mop back up. But then it got even better because after she had sprayed her kitchen counters down, she turned and triumphantly said that even HER PEDIATRICIAN recommended LYSOL. I mean it's one thing for your neighbor to tell you it's good stuff but when a doctor says it...wow. I turned to Kevin at this point in the commercial and told him that I would like to hear how a conversation like that would play out:
pediatrician: "Well, Mrs. Jones, Tommy looks perfectly
healthy and his vaccinations are all current so we'll see
you next year around this time."
commercial mom: "Great! Oh - there was one more thing
I wanted to ask you about. I have all these germs and this
bacteria and all kinds of nasty stuff around my house. I
haven't been able to figure out what to do about it. Do you
have any recommendations?"
pediatrician: "That'a a good question. I would strongly
recommend LYSOL. I know that there are other things
out there but they only kill...uh... I don't remember the
exact number of viruses but they only kill a small list of
viruses out there while LYSOL kills a whole long list of them."
[By this point in the commercial they had a very short list of viruses that OUST kills scrolling down the right side of the tv while the hundreds of viruses LYSOL has been proven to kill scrolled down the left side of the tv]
commercial mom: "LYSOL huh? I hadn't thought of that but that's a really good idea! Thanks!"
( I know that's not the way they REALLY go about getting a doctor's approval or recommendation for that kind of thing but it IS a funny thought)
Then there's the paper towel commercial for BOUNTY I think it is that I saw while watching some online video clips. In one of them, the father and son are sitting there debating whether the spill running across the floor is a 3 or 4 paper towel spill. Meanwhile, commercial mom smugly proves them both wrong by using one, quilted, heavy duty, soak up a whole gallon of milk with one square, sheet of bounty. First of all, it's very likely there is going to be some yelling going on (okay, maybe not yelling as I'm not much of an outward yeller - but some serious frustration) if that happens in my house and secondly, if my husband and kids sat there and discussed how many paper towels it was going to take me to clean up a spill as it ran along the kitchen floor, they would probably need to leave the house for about 5 hours to maintain their safety as my wrath with them slowly subsided. Of course, if I was a tv commercial mom, all of my spills would run in a straight path as opposed to the spills in my life that splatter over everything high or low within about 10 feet of the object that spilled.
On and on it goes: soccer (or baseball or whatever) mom greets her sports star without even a slight grimace at the uniform that she has to try to keep clean for a whole season because she knows her stain remover may as well be a magical wand when it comes to getting stains out. Then there's the mom/wife that I can totally identify with because she is apparently not known for her first class home cooked meals. However... she'll let you in on her secret - maybe KFC, maybe "tastes like grandma's home cooking in a box" meal, or Uncle Fred's "they'll never know it was frozen in a bag" meal. You see her whole family sitting there as husband and children alike extol her homecooked meal while she and you both know [wink, wink] that she only spent 8 minutes prep. time and 17 minutes cook time to be this hero. Now mind you, I am not knocking any of the mentioned products because I have each and every one of these products in my own house. It's just that they don't always work right - at least I don't always feel happy, calm, and loving when I use the products to clean, disinfect, de-stain or any other number of things. But then again, if you paid me enough money to sop up messes in someone else's house and hug a couple of kids while I was at it, I would probably be willing to smile while I did it too. Well, I need to go for now. I have to go hug my daughter because I think she just got chips all over the living room floor!

3 comments:

Betty said...

Don't ya wish life was so perfect!! Please. My kids look at the spill forever but they sure aren't trying to figure out how many paper towels it will take. They hope someone like dear old mom will come along and clean it up for them.

The Taylors said...

It seems there is an easy cure for you lack of "great mothering skills" it seems obvious to me that lysol (and Bounty) are the ingredient missing from your life! :-) LOL I envy your writing ability!

Mike and Heather said...

you are hilarious. I greatly enjoy tuning in to your blog! :)