Antiques Road Show

The Monday night ritual is to watch the Antiques Road Show on Public Broadcasting. Often, at about the half-hour mark, I doze off, but just as often I watch the show all the way through and then doze off.

The people are more interesting than the item they have brought for appraisal. Still there are times when I wish I owned something that has a long and interesting history. I like paintings most of all. That preference probably arises from my own interest in painting and art in general.

Now, here is what interests me most of all. As I have written, it is the people and their reactions to the appraisal. A parody of the show is one of the GEICO commercials that proclaims that a "bird in the hand is better than two in a bush." The commercial moves to a mock up of the Antiques Road Show. The appraiser points out the qualities of, I suppose, a ceramic hand holding a ceramic blue bird. The appraiser goes on to tell the owner of the object that it worth "two in a bush." The owner responds in amazement, "Really!"

Every now and then on the Road Show the response is "really", but more often than not the response is "wow!" Of course, this does not apply when the appraiser tells the proud owner that he or she has been bamboozled and the item is a fake. Nevertheless, "wow" is the operative word.

One evening I decided to count the number of times the word "wow" was spoken by an amazed owner of a valuable antique. The first count was about six or seven (probably seven). Then one evening I counted sixteen wows. So far that's the record. A week ago I counted ten wows. I am looking forward to the day when twenty wows are expressed.

See, there's more to a TV show than just what's presented. Look deeper and you may say, "Wow!"