A Major Life-Changing Announcement...

I got married in '04, but I have known My Lovely Wife™ for a lot longer than that. I personally blame her for why I never went through a Heat-N-Serve period in my life.

I shall explain.

In high school, most of my meals came out of a can, or from my mother's kitchen, or from the handful of restaurants I was employed at. In college, if I wasn't eating Ramen Noodles or cans of Spaghetti-O's, I was enjoying whatever they prepared for students in the local Commons. After college I spent a great portion of my time back at my folks' house, and later when I made a (very meager) living as a Radio DJ, it was always a question of fast food. I think in the 2 years that I spent doing radio, I ate a home-cooked meal once. And THAT was only because my roommate was trying to sleep with me and she thought if she made a casserole it would get me hot and horny for room-on-room action. It did not.

After I met My Lovely Wife™ I learned to cook. I pretty much had to. Ask her, she'll agree that if I didn't cook on a regular basis, we'd starve. Wonder why I am so fat now? It's because I am a damn good cook.

But as a result, I missed out on living the life of a "just throw it in and heat it up" kind of existence. I went from "cook it for me" to "I'll get it to go" and straight on to "All you need is a saucepan, some paprika and a good vegetable-chopping knife".

In short, I never fully experienced the majesty of existing solely on TV Dinners.

There is something about the TV Dinner that fascinates me and captures my whimsy. Perhaps it's because they always looked so horrifyingly delightful in old commercials. Maybe it's because the concept of Salisbury Steak just plain sounds funny to me. Maybe it's the 'fried chicken' sitting on a tinfoil square that perfectly captures the notion of "Suburban Bliss" to me.

I'm sure that quite a bit of it has to do with the stereotypical image of a shiny foil tray sitting comfortably on a thin metal folding-tray in front of a 12-inch TV screen. There is something truly wonderful about the idea of coming home, pulling off your shoes, grabbing an inch-thick block of prepackaged edibles out of the ice box, popping it into the oven for twenty minutes, and sitting down to watch The Beaver with a glass of beer and a full meal at your knee. I have a tremendous aversion to network television, and despite the fact that I have scarfed what amounts to roughly 60 tons of pizza, wings, ribs and chips in front of my home theater; I have never actually sat down to a hearty ready-to-eat meal while enjoying the fine programming that Burbank California has seen fit to expose me to.

For whatever reason, I have decided to undergo the following experiment.

Starting on March 1st, 2009, and continuing though the entire month, my evening meal shall consist of nothing but TV Dinners whenever I eat at home, and they shall all be consumed on a tray while enjoying a television show of my choosing.

I call it the:


Yes indeed. For the entire month of March I have decided to forgo "cooking" anything for my nightly meal. Instead, I will indulge myself by luxuriating in whatever the good people at Swanson, Hungry Man, Lean Cuisine, Stoeffer's and the rest of the gang have deemed fit to consume for my supper.

Naturally, I will provide reviews, descriptions, photos, and breakdowns of the experiment. And because I am a stickler for details, here are a few important ones to consider:

1. I will not pass up an opportunity to eat at a restaurant. My TV Dinner consumption is regulated to remaining at home and having my dinner in the evening. To that effect, I will not have a TV Dinner for lunch, breakfast or snacky time. Because it's a TV Dinner, dammit.
2. As I have a long-standing hatred for reality TV, and I am not able to cope with the vast amount of "Stunt Programming" that modern-day TV has to offer, I will occasionally be watching DVDs of TV shows in the place of regularly-scheduled programming. I have several seasons of Classic SNL to get through, and I recently purchased the complete Addams Family series. Plus there is still my collection of Miami Vice, Alien Nation and Firefly to get through. In short: I will be watching TV shows while I am eating my TV Dinners, but they might not be the TV shows featuring Stars Who Dance.
   
3. Some field research has revealed that there is now a very thin line between "TV Dinners" and "Single-serving piles of frozen pasta, cheese, meat and veggies" designed to make you feel like you are getting thinner. For the sake of my experiment: A TV Dinner shall be any meal that requires me to heat it in order to enjoy it properly, and must come in a sectional tray consisting of at least two sections that separate the content. Sadly, this means I will NOT be enjoying Michelina's pasta entrees or very much from Weight Watchers. It also means no Pot Pie. Sacrifices MUST be made.
4. As I cannot imagine doing so without one, each meal will be consumed accompanied by an ice-cold bottle of Rolling Rock Beer. It just feels right, people.
   

I plan on kicking this odyssey off on March 1st. In preparation I have already purchased a few delightful-looking standbys like the Hungry Man Turkey Dinner (the box proudly proclaims that it is MOSTLY white meat, and stands by its' boast by displaying a photo with 3 slices of pink turkey and one very gray one soaking in gravy).

Wish me luck, and send me Tums. I have a feeling we will all become stronger from this experience.