In the absence of a real dining table (though one is coming within the week), Sam and I have been eating dinner on the couch while watching TV. Normally, this is against everything I believe in for dinnertime, but I've reconciled the infraction in light of my latest discovery: every night for two hours, the Hallmark Channel reruns four episodes of Who's the Boss?, a childhood obsession that seems to have stood the test of time better than others (Saved by the Bell, He-Man, and the like).
I was seven or eight when I first met the Bower residence in syndication. It was aired on Channel 2 at 6:00 or 6:30, I can't remember, but definitely during dinner time. Therefore, the sense of urgency to inhale my food and get to Who's the Boss? was overwhelming. One night, I got a horrible stomach ache that eventually resulted in a trip to the hospital where I puked up, among other things, sliced mushrooms, unchewed, from that night's dinner. I can still see them sitting in a runny puddle on the white linoleum floor.
After that, I was not allowed to watch TV during the dinner hour but could tape Who's the Boss? instead. That actually worked out better. I was then able to commit to memory episodes where Tony was shirtless, like when he was a boxer for charity, when he was in swim trunks in Mexico, when he became a spokesmodel for something called "Machismo Shower Gel" and spent a good portion of the episode lathering soap on his body while wearing a tiny flesh-colored speedo. Wet.
Clearly, this foreshadowed (or fueled) my future attraction to hairy, muscular men, but what I failed to acknowledge at the time were the themes of kindness, the importance of family, the chemistry between Tony and Angela and the slow-burning development of their inevitable relationship. After many an episode, Sam, in reluctant admittance, would often say, "It's actually a really sweet show," like it should have disgusted him but didn't, and that was a welcome surprise.
But, truthfully, it is a sweet show, and it was a welcome surprise to find it back on the air. As an adult, I no longer have to swallow my dinner whole in order to watch it, though I wonder what I will do when our dining table comes in and we can once again return to our old routine of actual conversation during dinner. Though I still think Tony Danza is attractive, it's really just a phantom blip, a vestige from days long past. Mostly, I now find the show comforting, like an old friend you knew 'way back when' and are now seeing through stranger eyes. There was only so much subtlety, so much romance an eight-year-old could process.
Now, I sometimes feel like watching Tony and Angela is like watching two other people act out our lives to some degree: Sam knows a thing or two about boxing, enjoys housework and looks good in swim trunks. I can be neurotic at times, tragically unhip and often obliviously so. I'd like to think that the chemistry between Sam and I is comparable to Tony and Angela's, that we, too, have an inevitable relationship.
Last night, Angela loudly confessed her love for Tony in her sleep and to everyone within earshot. In shame, she spent half of her birthday by herself in a bar. When Tony finally found her, he attempted to express his mutual feelings with a bumbling monologue full of "oh"s and "um"s, something about living together and sharing appliances and how it's a tough world out there. Anything but love, anything but those words.
When I watched that scene, it felt so familiar, like a mirror image if I were to become a blonde with a penchant for shoulder pads. I knew, then, that it was true: turns out that I have found my very own Tony after all.
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