Back in the Day: Polkaroo

Sometimes pretending to be sick so you could stay home was actually worse than going to school.

I have no idea how or why this came up, but lately I have been singing the polka dot door theme song.

Photo by Bruna Araujo on Unsplash

This could very well be the start of early onset dementia, or more likely: I have a child now and silly songs are fun. I’m gonna go with the latter.

I had forgotten how bad us GenX folk had it when it came to TV. Sure, we had a few gems like being able to stay home unsupervised and watch Donahue and The Price is Right while pretending to be sick.

Being pretend-sick was great back in the day - no note needed, no bullshit about going to see a doctor. (well, you had to bullshit your parents) and then you had all day unsupervised to do what you wanted. I remember eating lots of ravioli out of a can, but that’s a whole other post.

ALL DAY UNSUPERVISED. Times have changed.

Then by miracle at about 4:00pm when all your friends came home from school you were suddenly better. We called it the four-o-clock flu.

But sometimes, you were home with the TV and Donahue and Bob were not doing for you and it was too early for the happy days reruns to start, so you thought you might flip the dial over to TV ONTARIO and see if there was anything good there.

Oh, look! It’s the Polka Dot Door!

I forgot how bad this was. It’s like really, really bad.

Really Bad.

So, of Course I had to show the child.

And…she loved it. Once.

I don’t think she loved it enough to ever ask to see another episode so we are one and done with the polka dot door for now. She’s seen it.

Some weird kangaroo with polka dots. Got it.

But, just wait until I show her The Price is Right..

“A NEW CARRRRRR!”

But not before she gets a note from the Doctor. Because now there’s rules.

And better television programming.