Perfect Day - I liked

Perfect Day - I liked this bit on Fraters Libertas, partly because of the homage to newly, involuntarily-departed WCCO noon news host Bill Carlson, but to the whole imagery of being home, sick but not too sick, when you're a kid.

It's a cold January day. The winds whirl, the trees moan. Snow is piled in drifts that are measured in feet, not inches. But none of this matters to you today because today you are Staying Home. You've managed to convince your mother you (cough cough) don't really feel well and just couldn't make it today. She reluctantly agrees and it's on.

Whatever you want to eat, she'd whip up since "A hamburger and a malt are the only things that sound good to me". She'd also leave you alone to recuperate, but since a kid can't sleep ALL DAY, she would also move the small black and white TV into your room (for the duration of your sickness only).

There you watch the shows of the housewives and the unemployed: Price Is Right, Tic Tac Dough, maybe a Gilligan's re-run on channel 9, the Gong Show and for whatever reason the 12 o'clock news on channel 4.

I remember doing the same when I was a kid - the only changes in the ritual (maybe once a year) were that I NEVER got the burger and malt (Campbells Chicken Soup, baybee), Mom'd get me a bottle of 7up, and Dad'd bring me home a Mad Magazine after work.

My kids haven't discovered this ritual yet. There's only one parent in the home, and kids today are afraid of being alone, I think - moreso than when I was a kid.

As to the daytime TV lineup - the Fraters' JB Doubtless is probably too young to remember the real cool "sick day" TV - Match Game with Gene Rayburn, followed by that horrible thing with Burt Convy...which one was that? Oh, hell, everything with Burt Convy was horrible.

Speaking of daytime TV - I'm not watching any yet. After two days out of work, I've spent about eight hours on the phone, and now have nine interviews this week (including Tuesday's two). Four of them are today (Wednesday). So hopefully this unemployed interlude will be fairly brief. Fingers crossed.

And thanks to those who answered my muted plea yesterday - I got enough money to keep the site on the air a few months. Not that I'll turn anything else down - I mean, if I can do my February mortgage payment, that'd be fine too. But seriously - thanks for your generosity.

Posted by Mitch at January 8, 2003 03:59 AM