I’m on a vintage kick. I have been on one for the last three decades, so I’m rather used to it, but…

The ringer on this phone could wake the dead. It was epic. You can see how the new phone number was added when the phone was moved from one house to the next – who takes a phone with them when they move? Well, if you’re my grandmother-in-law, you do. The new number was added in her careful script in 1979. She passed away in 2010 and I have no idea where the phone is now. Hopefully still causing regular heart-attacks when it rings – and confounding young and old with how to actually use it.

For the purposes of this blog, though, I want to talk about what the phone is sitting on. It’s a TV tray. I’m not entirely sure what the actual origins of a TV tray are, but it’s my understanding that people would eat their pre-made TV dinners in front of the television and they needed something they could easily pull up so they could dine in comfort, and have somewhere to put their drink – if it was my grandmother-in-law it was a rye and fizzy grapefruit soda. Poured liberally. Bit of ice. Don’t knock it, she lived to 94.

But I digress. The TV table was a flimsy, lightweight ‘solution’ to the boon that was TV dinners. I wasn’t around in the 1950s when they were invented, but I have it on good authority that they were pretty awful and haven’t improved much in the ensuing years. Regardless, there is an entire aisle in the frozen food section of my grocery store devoted to pre-made meals, so even if they are awful, they’re still popular.

I do think it’s interesting that furniture was created so we could eat dinner in front of the TV, rather than at the dining room table or kitchen. And I also think it’s interesting that the technology to eat in front of the TV has gone from this to just holding it on our laps. We have regressed, furniture-wise but the pre-made meals are better. Who would have seen that coming?