Sugar and Spite

My name is in a database to be invited to focus groups, where they pay you for your opinion on things. I’ve been signed up with them for a year, but thus far I haven’t been to a single one. They call frequently enough, but either I don’t qualify for whatever demographic they’re looking for, or its at a time that I can’t go.

Last night, they called to see if I’d be interested in attending a group about TV. OMG, yes! I LOVE TV! And the time was great - I could go! So she starts asking me the qualification questions - I’m thinking I have this in the bag. I watch loads of TV. I am SO DOWN with the POP-CULTURE. We get through the basic demographic stuff and I’m still qualified, and then she starts asking the actual TV Questions.

LADY: Are you available to watch tv like, everynight, all the time?

ME: I am! I do!

LADY: Please tell me how often you watch the following shows:
Lost -

ME: OMG! Always.

LADY: 24?

ME: Always! (lalala, my first focus group!)

LADY: Commander In Chief?

ME: Uh… didn’t that just get canned? And also, no.

LADY: Desperate Housewives?

ME: Ew, No.

LADY: …Grey’s Anatomy?

ME: Again No-

LADY: WHAT?!?

And then there was some other show that I’ve never even heard of, which is preposterous. She went through them again, to be sure, or to give me chance to make something up. Ryan is in the other room all, “MY GOD, you can read the recaps, just say you watch something!” But I have found out something about myself, which is that I cannot lie to the Focus Group people. Its not that I’m afraid of getting in trouble, or that they won’t call me again. Its not really even morals, because I’m not sure morals apply when you are dealing with corporate marketing strategy. It’s more of an arrogance thing. For me to say that I watch something that I don’t watch, and in fact dislike, would be a dishonor to the Great Value of My Own Opinion. And My Opinion rules and cannot be sullied.

So anyway, after we established that I wasn’t qualified, she proceeded to keep me on the phone for about 15 minutes discussing the merits of Why I Should Be Watching Grey’s Anatomy. And everything that’s happened since the first two episodes that I watched, and found to be incredibly boring. “GIRL,” she says. “You just watch the rerun of the finale and tell me you aren’t hooked. It’s only an hour, you got nothing to lose.” She was so insistent. It was cute.

But I’m still not watching it.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 9:32 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.