Daytime TV

Let the weekend begin!

Yesterday, I was supposed to be grading.  And I was, slowly, with the TV on.  That was a mistake, because I wasn't in the mood to watch football or sappy movies, or even more than one Hitchcock movie.  So I ended up with this show about people who are basically worried about a sort of catastrophe and getting ready so that they'll survive it.  It was like watching a car wreck.

Each of the people profiled worried about a specific sort of catastrophe, and their readiness was specific to their sort of catastrophe.  Except the catastrophe and preparations were, well, not really realistic.  Even the tv show voiceover that judges their readiness acknowledged that whatever sort of catastrophe the person was worried about was pretty unlikely.

So, instead of someone in, say, LA being worried about a major earthquake, and putting together a few days supply of water, some candles, food, and first aid stuff, they showed someone worrying that that earth's magnetic field would reverse and nothing electrical would work.  Instead of having someone here in the northwoods worry about a massive blizzard, and storing up some fuel, food, blankets, and so on, they had someone worried about the total financial collapse of the world, which would result in no one selling (or bartering anything), and so on. 

My favorite, weirdly, was this woman who was worried about a flu pandemic.  That's actually not so unrealistic.  But instead of starting with flu vaccines, she has this absolutely overwhelming supply of medical stuff.  And food.

One of the people, it may have been the flu woman, said they have over $100K of supplies.  My mind boggles.

The worst was that these people imposed their readiness stuff on their families, and you could tell the family members had either gone along and joined the crazy, or hadn't, but were too young or dependent to get out of the situation.  There was a cruel bit where the sister in law (?) of the flu woman came late to a preparedness drill, carrying her toddler looking kid, and the flu woman insisted they be put in a special quarantine area.  The sister in law looked like her patience was tried, but the poor little kid looked so scared.

Or maybe the worst was the level of fear the people seemed to have.  I mean, they seem completely convinced that everyone will be coming to kill them when the disaster hits.  They're all armed to the teeth.

I can't decide if this or the show about hoarding is a worse grading show for me.  At least the hoarding show inspires me to clean out a closet or junk drawer once in a while.