But every now & then, one of them throws a gut punch.
Take, for example, this commercial for coffee. You can click on the link if you're feeling brave enough to watch. (SPOILERS AHEAD!) It shows an older woman with a baby in her arms, cooing, "Grandma is so happy to be here for your very first Christmas!!" She goes on "I hear you're quite the expert at waking people up in the morning... let me show you how Grandma does it!" She opens a container of coffee & puts it on to brew. As she shows him an ornament on the tree that his daddy made when he was a little boy, and then a photo of Daddy as a little boy, we cut to Daddy (Grandma's grown-up little boy) waking up to the smell of coffee brewing, coming downstairs to help himself to a cup and watching the pair by the Christmas tree. "Thanks for making the coffee... Really glad you're here, Mom," he says. "Me too," she says.
And after all these years, all these hits to my poor battered heart, I see this stupid coffee commercial, and my eyes fill with tears.
I will never be that Grandma (or that Mom). (Lots of my cousins & high school classmates are grandparents already.)
My mom will never be that Grandma either.
And (even though she's been gone 17 years now), I still miss MY Grandma (& Grandpa), most especially at Christmastime, when we were always together as a family.
It's just not fair. :(
You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.
Can I start by saying that Folgers is awful, AWFUL coffee? If I can get myself weaned for a couple of days, I will flat out refuse the stuff. Just not worth it.
ReplyDeleteSo given that, I'm not surprised they have no taste or consideration for advertising. Still, I'm so sorry this triggered so much. It hurts in ways that I wish you didn't experience. One more reason to boycott them.
Hey, I'm a tea drinker anyway. ;) I will drink coffee if it's the only thing around & I'm desperate, but I WILL need sugar & milk, and I still can't drink espresso, much to the amusement of my Italian in-laws. (Lattes, maybe, straight espresso, nope.)
DeleteActually, I've always had warm fuzzies for Folgers, because it was the brand my Grandma used. She always had a pot of coffee percolating on the stove (and inevitably, somebody would drop by to visit & drink it in her cozy little kitchen, along with some home-baked goodies). The smell of coffee brewing automatically takes me back there. But yeah, this ad takes a bit of the fluff off the warm fuzzies for me. :(
Nope, it's not fair. And you expressed it so well - "after all these hits to my poor battered heart ..." That perfectly explains why things can still hurt after so many years. Hugs.
ReplyDeleteOh, NO. What an awful, manipulative commercial. I took your description instead of watching, because that kind of thing makes me bawl. I'm so sorry. It really isn't fair, on all the many levels you mentioned. Maybe switch to Hulu or Netflix instead of cable...less commercials. Although sometimes the ones they do have run over and over and just do the repetitive battering en masse. I'm thinking of you. This season is so tough.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me so sad, too. Sometimes people are blind to the privileges they have. And by "they" I sometimes mean "I."
ReplyDeleteI wish I could sit over a cup of coffee or tea with you and talk about the 70s and 80s :-) How privileged we were to grow up with the music of that time.
I would love that too, Lori! :)
DeleteThe line Mali picked up on is the same one that I picked up on too. I'm sorry it hurt. If it means anything at all, this one had me in a puddle of tears too. There's another commercial, this one a winter commercial and not a holiday one, that leaves me a blubbering mess too. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I totally agree with Cristy about Folgers being the worst and if I can ever wean myself off of it, I'll start refusing it. Unless I win the lotto and can support my habit with a higher end brand. :)
We don't have that ad here but it sounds grim. I confess I have a special secret hatred for ecstatic grandmas revelling in their grandkids - the lights of their lives ("What else is there?", as someone I know puts it) - since I neither have a mum nor kids, nor a dad who's in my life. I love and adore coffee though.
ReplyDelete