Ready Your TV Trays Twin Falls; National Frozen Dinner Day Coming

The one day out of the year where you shouldn't feel bad about preparing a meal for your entire family in under seven minutes is almost upon us.

National TV Dinner Day is Tuesday, September 10. My parents divorcing in the late seventies meant sit down, family dinners went bye bye for the most part. My mother still attempted to provide nutritious meals for my older brother and I, which were usually scraped into the garbage in lieu of Totino's Pizza Rolls or a bowl of Captain Crunch.

Dinner at my dads was never a revelation. Hungry-Man Salisbury Steak, or the three-piece chicken dinner with corn, a 900 degree dollop of brownie and faux mashed potatoes, were pretty much our options. It was either that, or the neighborhood diner. If it required sauteing, marinading, frying, boiling--hell, if it meant more than stabbing fork holes through plastic for ventilation--my dad was incapable of pulling it off.

I remember watching countless hours of the Benny Hill Show with my dad while eating our TV dinners. My brother and I would wait for my dad to pull the plastic off the newly microwaved, uninspiring meals, and smile at one another as the heat vapors rose to his wrist, resulting in an outburst of profanity eight times out of 10. Cheers, Hill Street Blues, The Dating Game and Bonanza, were other programs we were forced to sit through.

So remember, when Tuesday rolls around be sure to pull up a TV tray and your preferred, molecular scrambling microwaved dish, and fire up the tube. No dishes required.