I’m telling you, if I have to see Brett Favre cry on TV one more time, I’m going to have a minor breakdown. That’s got to be the saddest, most heart-wrenching thing since The Crying Indian on the Keep America Beautiful commercial.
In all the time last week that I spent in airports, there were TVs hung from the rafters every way you turned, playing repeated coverage of Brett Favre crying. Those sickos at MSNBC just couldn’t help but keep showing it over and over, the tear trickling down his cheek, the halting voice, the scrunched up lips. The guy’s a football player, for crying out loud, and he’s crying. Out loud.
Does he just make you want to get up and give him a big hug, or what? I was actually a little relieved when he got trumped by Gov. Spitzer, whose picture was soon flashing on every TV screen, his bottom lip up over his eyebrows. But he didn’t cry. And he didn’t make me want to go give him a hug. In any sense whatsoever.
Men crying on TV make me just uncomfortable. On American Idol I pray that a girl will go home, so if there are tears it’s not so bad. If a boy starts to cry, I have to go crawl under my bed.
Things on TV that make me cry is not seeing other people cry, but that’s about the only thing that doesn’t. I get teary if I hear the National Anthem, black Baptist choirs singing about Jesus, children singing anything – anything at all; when I see Will and Grace hugging, when Rachel finds out she’s pregnant with Ross’ baby, clips from the last Johnny Carson show, any retrospective at the Oscars, anything that is set to the song “Thanks for the Memories” or “Celebrate Me Home,” and anything related to the Vietnam War or the Kennedys. The list of things that don’t make me cry would be shorter.
And then there are the commercials. The McDonald’s corporate advertising department has some sickos working there. Remember the ‘home for the holidays’ commercials? I almost had to go to therapy. And the one where the old guy is starting on his first day of work at the McDonald’s? I’ve had to stop folding laundry and wipe the tears from my cheeks and blow my nose.
Here’s a little test for you. Well, only the women. Watch thisHallmark commercial and if you’re not crying by the end I’ll buy you a Starbucks.
Now try this one: Can you guess the split second where I let out a eh-hhh-huh-huh sob? Yep, right when the girl looks up and sees the old people standing there with the pie.
I hate when something is so corny and stupid and you cry anyway. TV people love it. Crying sells.
So Brett, if you want us to cry with you, you’re going to have to do commercials. Until then, we’ll be under the bed.