TV Trays Bring Changes

TV trays are not usually something that comes to mind on a daily basis, but the TV tray is quite possibly one of the most useful and unique pieces of functional home furnishing. The entire idea behind TV trays is to allow you to sit in a nontraditional piece of furniture, such as a couch or easy chair, and eat food and drink beverages while watching a program on the television. I can distinctly remember when the first set of wooden TV trays showed up in my house as a boy. The television itself had been in place for some time in the living room, but my family had dinner at the proper table in the dining room. Since the television was rather large and bulky, we did not move it into the dining room. One evening my father showed up with six TV trays on a stand. The TV tray tables clanked against each other as I carried the whole thing from the trunk of the car into the living room. Once I had the folding TV trays in the room with the television, I suddenly understood that the entire family dining experience had changed forever, and that these TV trays would become a part of my home life. That’s a pretty strong statement, I understand, but the fact of the matter is that since a TV tray is easy to fold up and put in an out of the way corner of the room, these additions to our dining experience were here to stay.

All of the TV trays were identical in that they were made from blonde wood, or what appeared to be blonde wood. Actually, they were made from some sort of cheap plywood, and the legs that folded out were made of thin and, therefore, easily bent tube metal, but that didn’t matter because they were new and they were so easy to use. The flat top of the TV tray was flat and sort of square, of course, but I noticed it folded down against the metal legs so it could be set on the TV tray rack with the other folding TV trays. Another thing I noticed was that my entire family was taking the individual TV tray table, opening and closing the TV trays and moving them around the room to see which spot on the couch provided the best view of the television. Suddenly, the usual place for dinner had been shifted to a mere ornamental space reserved for special holidays. Now the family would gather in the living room to have dinner, and we would commune, so to speak, with the television instead of with each other. Further, the travel time for the food and drinks increased significantly because the space to sit things on, such as plates and glasses and forks and knives, was, by design, much more limited and necessitated several trips back and forth to the kitchen. Finally, we devised a solution for the condiments we were always tossing on our foods. We set up an individual TV tray just for the steak sauce and the extra napkins required by the splatters caused by using the different condiments.

Eventually, my entire family was sitting in the living room, a TV tray in front of them with their dinner on top, watching the current television program and scurrying back and forth, always being careful not to block anybody’s line of vision, to the kitchen for a second helping or a refill of some liquid. It occurred to me early on after this shift in location for food consumption started that there were probably thousands of similar families just in my little hometown doing exactly the same thing every evening. It also occurred that watching television in the living room while eating meals off of TV trays was how dinner would be done from here on out, at least in my country. I wondered if it was possible that everybody in my country, and then the world, would be eating off of TV tray tables, and while it was nice to have wooden TV trays, I could see easily that TV trays would be ubiquitous. As it turned out, I was correct about the growth of the number of folding TV trays in the homes of everyday people. Today, TV trays are so numerous and have propagated to the point that it would be entirely possible to gather up a full set of TV trays off the curb after people have set out a set of TV tray tables, including the rack on which they rest when not in use, because they discover they have more than one set and simply do not need multiple sets of TV trays cluttering up their house and garages. I suppose there really isn’t any point in even asking whether TV trays are a good idea, or if the family unit has been further atomized by the arrival and implementation of the TV tray because they are as permanent a part of our homes as the paint on the wall.