There Will Be Order!!!

If you read this blog religiously (shame on you if you don’t), you know that the television is rarely on at our house during the day except for “Yo Gabba Gabba,” “Dora” and the occasional “Wonder Pets.” But the one show I will make an exception for is “Law and Order.” I never really can get enough of Fred Thompson.

Yesterday's episode had reporters crawling all over Fred Thompson saying, "People are up in arms, what are you going to do about it." To which he so wonderfully replied, "Well, I'd tell em to put their arms down."

That is too funny.


(This picture is actually his official Congressional picture. I think he forgot that he is not really Arthur Branch, the New York District Attorney.)

Anyway, I know everyone’s into all these “CSI” and “Cold Case” kinds of shows, none of which I have ever seen, because they have nothing on “Law and Order” or “Law and Order SVU.” You can’t spend a single evening of channel surfing without being bombarded with some sort of supposed true crime show, and I always make a point of avoiding all of them. I stick to the oldies but goodies.

But for all of you who also love bringing the morgue into your living room, you should know, your addiction to dead people may be making you fat.
It’s true, scientists have confirmed it. I found it on MSNBC.com, and once a scientist confirms it, you know it must be true.

So a brand spankin new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research actually confirms that my “Law and Order” addiction is making me eat and shop more.
Here’s what the study concludes, “consumers who have been recently reminded of their own impending mortality spend more on groceries – and actually eat more of those groceries.” Naomi Mandel, co author of the study and an associate professor of marketing at Arizona State University says, “We found that when people think about the fact that they’re going to die someday…they want to consume more of everything.”
And yes, she means everything, from frozen foods to meat to vegetables. Who thinks, “Hey, that guy just got stabbed to death, give me some steamed broccoli and I’ll feel better about the chances that I might get stabbed to death in the alley out back.”

And how did “they” (who is “they” anyway) conclude these findings?

Well, in one experiment, a “mortality” group was chosen to write about their own impending deaths while a control group wrote about going to the dentist. Afterward, after some uplifting poetry about death and dentists, each group was given a grocery list for a hypothetical party and asked to check off items they needed to purchase. The “mortality” group selected a whole lot more party items than the “dentist” group. Which pretty much tells me that "Law and Order" fans simply throw better parties. And when a group was asked to write about either their own death or a painful medical procedure, and then eat cookies, this group stuffed their faces with 25 percent more cookies than the control group.

Apparently, consumers who are confronted with images of death may think it’s going to happen to them and it apparently causes them to “overconsume.”
So apparently, “Law and Order” is responsible for the five pounds on my thighs that even P90X can’t seem to get rid.

Regardless, I think I’ll stick to “Law and Order.” I traded in “Forensic Files,” on what used to be Court TV, for Jack McCoy and Arthur Branch, aka, Fred Thompson. and I’m happy with that. Now Court TV has Star Jones and the network is called something else, but on “Forensic Files” the basic plot would usually be a murderer sneaking up behind some lady in her garage and then smashing her skull in. That used to make me wonder who was lurking in my garage waiting to smash my head in. But I think I’m over that now. I still check under the Durango before I actually step into the garage, and I always have my mace open and ready to go on the way back to the house.
You just never know when you’ll get stabbed to death on the way back from the garage…..




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