My fictional kindred spirits

I'm convinced that Patricia Heaton, or at least the characters she plays, are my kindred spirits.  My life closely followed her fictional life on Everybody Loves Raymond and now does the same on The Middle.  It's pretty crazy. 


If you spend any time with me at all, you will eventually either hear me say, "This is like that Everybody Loves Raymond episode when . . . ." or you will just look at my life and see it for yourself.  (Most recently, this happened when part of our old chimney came crashing through the basement ceiling.  "This is an episode of Raymond," I told David.  "No, he said.  That was a few years ago when Landen drove the tractor through the shed.")  He was right.  We had surpassed it.  We had now reached a whole new level of absurdity.


What I loved about the show when it was new, and still love in the re-runs is that their conflicts are so typical.  In fact, the first time I saw the famous suitcase episode, I was actually holding my own suitcase experiment.  (I ended up putting it away in the end, and thankfully it did not involved stinky cheese.) 


Now I am a fan of The Middle.  Again, I see myself in Patricia's matronly character, Frankie Heck.  (I am happy to see they have updated her look a bit this year.)  The Middle is much more of a parody than Raymond, and that's what makes it so great.  We can watch it and say, "Well, I might have done that once or twice, but never THAT badly."  She's always trying to keep up and always a step behind.  That's how I feel most of the time.  And, sometimes I even see myself in Brick, the lovable, quirky bookworm.


In both of these shows, the married couple and surrounding family may have their differences and disagreements, but they always love each other in the end.  I guess that's why I love watching them so much.  I like to see a happy, or at least peaceful, ending.  That's where it isn't "real," I suppose, as real life doesn't follow a neat conflict/resolution script. 


Sometimes it's just nice to know all will be well in 30 minutes or less. . . or to assure myself, "I've never dumped a bowl of cereal in a Ziploc bag and sent my child to school with it.  I'm doing alright here."