Tonight millions of people will be parked in front of their TVs with chips and dip for the biggest sports event of the year-The Superbowl. I personally have no interest in the concept of paying men millions of dollars to give each other concussions and normally wouldn’t give a second thought to tonight’s events. I don’t care about the $5 million commercials for some website I’ve never heard of. I don’t even care if Justin Timberlake exposes someone’s boob again during the halftime show. This year I’ll be waiting for what happens AFTER the Super Bowl. In a stroke of marketing genius, NBC has decided to air the This Is Us episode we’ve been waiting 2 years for right after the Super Bowl.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, This Is Us is a wildly popular NBC show chronicling the lives of the Pearson family, especially in relation to how they deal with the loss of devoted family man, Jack Pearson. Through an elaborate set of flashbacks, we saw that the family accidentally forgot to put new batteries in their smoke detector two weeks ago. We also watched as their neighbor gifted them a used crockpot. The crockpot turns out to be faulty and ultimately sparks a fire which torches the entire home, killing Jack.
You may be asking yourself why on earth I decided to upload this post about a TV drama when the blog is supposed to be about healthy eating and lifestyle. It’s easy to see my obsession with wellness through my blog and Instagram- I live and breathe to keep my kids safe and happy. I try to feed them well, keep toxins away from our home and give them the tools they need to thrive. Hell, I give probiotics and DHA to my three week old baby- I’m just that person! That being said, the sad truth is that with this fierce desire to protect my kids comes an ugly side effect, namely the (irrational?) fear of something going wrong. I am not ashamed to say that many things scare me shitless- house fires scare me, childhood cancers petrify me, and school shootings and pediphiles give me nightmares, just to name a few. I’m writing this post just to tell other parents with similar dizzying fears that you aren’t alone.
After the crockpot lit on fire, I immediately announced the end of crockpot cooking in my house forever. Sure this is an insane reaction, (see here on which kitchen appliances are actually more worrisome than a crockpot) but apparently I’m not alone. This episode has been a PR nightmare for Crockpot with people, like me, hitting up social media saying they would never use a crockpot again. So much so that Crockpot had to issue a statement, ensuring viewers of its safety:
In fact there must be so many people like me out there that NBC decided to have its Jack Pearson character, played by Milo Ventimiglia actually forgive Crockpot for his on screen death in an ad that will air during the Super Bowl
AND, then there’s even the legal question of whether Crockpot can sue NBC!
I’d love to know whether this episode sparked a fear within you and how all you moms deal with these types of irrational fears. I would love to learn some tools to help manage these fears. Lastly I’m wondering if you will ever use your crockpot again?!