Wherein I Reach for the Remote in Self Defense

I suspect I’m more than a bit hormonal.

One suspects this about one’s self when television commercials create a knot in your throat.

As a pregnant woman, ever so many years ago, the urging by a phone company that I “reach out and touch someone” had left me nodding in agreement, sobbing. 

That was also a Winter Olympics year.  Commercials of the USA hockey team's victory four years previously over the heavily favored Russians in the Winter Olympics played regularly, and the Star Spangled Banner created such an intense feeling of patriotism in me that I would rise from my seat and place my hand over my heart.

I was so damn proud to be an American I could hardly stand myself.

“You okay?” Donny would say.

“I’m – I’m – I’m just so proud,” I would sob.

“I wonder if that’s normal,” he would say, frowning. 

Of course, they do this on purpose, these advertisers, these twisters of carefully inserted, carefully crafted heartstrings.  I know this, I rail against this, and I have, again, fallen prey to this.

But what has brought this on?  Why am I grinning, somewhat sadly, at the TV?

A dog food commercial, for cryin’ out loud. 

Dogs!

I’ve never owned a dog, but there they are on the screen:  dogs, leaping for Frisbees; dogs, lying on their backs, pink bellies guilelessly exposed; dogs grinning at their owners; dogs at the window, focused on the longed-for reappearance of a master…

Waaaaaaaah!

Lousy dogs. 

Hello.  My name is Pearl. It’s Monday; I am suspiciously hormonal, and if I pass a telephone booth, a flag, or a puppy, I just may cry.