Woaring Cohabitation

A word from a sponsor. Not OUR sponsor, mind you, just A sponsor.

A troupe member of ours had recalled that when he was a kid, television networks typically signed off (went off the air) around midnight, then came back on the air around 6:00am. In the late 1980s, to raise money, network television networks started selling off that dead air in 30 minute segments. We don’t know what would possess a company to purchase a 3:00-3:30 am segment, since (1) most people were asleep, (2) those that were awake probably had better things to do than sit through a half hour commercial on a product they had no interest in buying, and (3) there was no television guide equivalent for advertisements back then, so those insomniacs could’ve gone right back to bed and missed the product they were interested in airing on the 3:30 slot.

The dialogue of this sketch was inspired by one of those infomercials. The pitch was for a vacuum cleaner and went something like this: “Call us at our toll-free number. Use the vacuum cleaner for 30 days. If for whatever reason, you aren’t completely satisfied, you can simply return it to [one of our brick-and-mortar stores] for a full refund, no questions asked.”

So this skit is an infomercial take on cohabitation. We here at CoBaD know from firsthand experience that marriage has its faults, however it seems to us that cohabitation doesn’t appear to be progressively better than marriage; in fact, it seems more like a regression. The “try risk free” (or “try before you buy”) mindset of cohabitation almost seems like it's treating women like property that they can be disposed of (or as Mr. Woaring so eloquently stated, kicked out of the house and sent crying back to their parents) at a moment’s notice.