Wow. I never realized I was so Hollywoodized. Just this morning I walked (in shoes) across the hardwood floor from living room to the kitchen, past the couch, and opened the refrigerator to get some milk out of the gallon jug. We keep our leftovers in the other fridge, though. And it’s usually Thai, not Chinese.
Posted from a Mac, while listening to the High Fidelity soundtrack.
The exception, of course, being the Chicago of ER where snow seems to cover the ground 365 days a year.
It’s worse than that. Some of us make pets of dogs and eat chickens!
This is so wrong. Just…so wrong.
It’s a stereotype foisted upon the world by Hollywood and there isn’t a speck of trutch to it!
For the record, what one will find in 99.625% of single males (hetero or not) will be, simply, beer. It’s a complete food source, and is not just for breakfast any more! 
:smack: Ok, let me rephrase that…although I think I WILL stand by the original phrasing, what I MEANT was “…in 99.625% of single male’s refrigerators”
What I’ve learned-
The style of house that I own (split level) doesn’t exist on film or TV.
All bathrooms have beautiful claw-foot tubs.
People that live in these homes don’t need to brush their teeth before they kiss, eat breakfast, go to work, etc. Ick.
I don’t recall a movie in which the house had two or more refridgerators. At any rate, that would be unusual in an actual household.
The seperate beds for couples thing went out with The Dick Van Dyke Show.
My brothers and I rarely put our bikes away as kids. They were never stolen.
The thing that drives me nuts is the number of people who have pet monkeys, like one household on every block. Seriously, who has a pet monkey?
I’m in Houston, and I’ve never seen Chinese food delivered in the paper boxes, except for steamed rice. It’s always in styrofoam or metal containers, like others have said. Perhaps those containers hold a greater volume of food, or cope with sauces better than paper boxes.
If we didn’t buy milk at least a half-gallon at a time, we’d have to buy it every day and we’d spend a lot more.
I rarely wear clothes around the house if we’re home by ourselves, but if we have people over everyone will be wearing shoes.
That’s my pet peeve. If the house is supposed to be a squalid mess, they’ll show a few papers scattered around the floor. I don’t think the set designer have any idea of what a truly messy room looks like.
Sinjin house-hold, middle America;
Chinese left overs in little cartons.–check (just got some Saturday)
Phone in every room.–check
TV in just about every room.–check (actually this is not quite true anymore, my kids took the TV’s out of their rooms when they moved out, so TV only in living room, br and basement)
1/2 gallon milk container (Glass because MrSin thinks milk tastes better if it comes in a glass container)–check (used to be gallon size when the kiddies lived here.)
Shoes on in the house.–check
Wood floors.–check (We have them in the living room, dining room, office and kitchen. They’re easy to care for and last forever).
More than one refrigerator.–check (one for food, one for beverages)
Front door opens to stairs–check in 3 of the 5 homes we’ve owned. This type of set-up is common on the East Coast in Cape Cod style homes and those called “Center Hall Colonials”
Going to the back door–check in older neighborhoods, current home construction makes it easier to go to the front door.
Bikes on lawns.–check (always when I was a kid, always when my kids were kids, and now with my neighbors kids)
Not locking the front door.–check (When we’re home and up and about the front door is always unlocked. 1/2 the time it’s unlocked when we’re asleep or out. The neighbors have the key anyway. Many areas of the US are not the wild west that people expect. I moved into my current house 5 years ago before it was completed. The doors didn’t have knobs on them much less locks, just holes with a towel shoved thru and around the jab to keep the door closed. No worries! My inlaws still leave the keys in their car).
Non-gated back yard.–check
Big garage that holds more than two cars:–check, 3.5 car size.
I must live in the movies/on TV. 
Wasn’t it the Bradys that were the first to be shown in bed together?
As a kid growing up in Hawaii I was always impressed with house sizes on TV. Then I visited my grandparents in Kansas. When you live in the middle of nowhere you might as well put as much of it indoors as you can I suppose. Nothing like a minute long trek to use the bathroom though. When you have to walk through 4 rooms and 2 hallways to get to the bathroom your house is too big!
Now this is a thread that needs a twin. We could probably talk about English homes haveing seen enough of them.
That’s what’s usually said, but it has recently been mentioned to me that Bewitched beat them to it.
I live in So Cal and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a metal tray.
Yes, it does. That type of wood siding can still be seen in some areas in my hometown. We had a huge German population in the mid-1800s, when they were built.
Not only do you not have to lock your front door, apparently you don’t have to lock your car either.
In my town:
There are several bakeries that use generic pink boxes. Mostly small, family-owned businesses.
Milk usually comes in paper cartons or plastic jugs, but some markets are starting to carry plastic imitations of the old glass bottles.
Oriental take-out: soup, sauces, and rice come in styrofoam cups, everything else comes in paper boxes.
The televisions are usually faced away from the audience unless what’s on it is important to the plot. If it isn’t important, then the TV is off. Also, the noise coming out of the TV is usually the same generic noise, as if everyone is watching a sporting event without commentators.
In my experience, it varies from restaurant to restaurant whether I get styrofoam containers or paper boxes. And i’ve even gotten sauces and such in the paper boxes; they appear to be wax coated like the paper cups you get pop in.
I’ve learned that people rarely wrap the entire birthday gift in one sheet of paper. They usually wrap the lid of the box separately so it can be opened without actually removing any paper. (I actually wrapped one of my sister’s b-day presents that way as a joke once, and her response was, “It’s a TV present!”
Oh, and along with that–any container, from shrinkwrapped plastic to those rigid plastic packages that NASA or the Pentagon should use as body armor etc–those open with the greatest of ease on TV!
Here in RL, we often have to take scissors or a knife to attack the damned things–and cut ourselves on the sharp edges as well.
we don’t have 2 fridges, we do have a freezer in the basement, but many families DO have a freezer-fridge in the basement as well as in the kitchen. We did when I was growing up (5 kids in family).
There is never any paperwork–if the hubby is doing the taxes, then the table may look cluttered–but where does that stuff go?
Never thought about the not saying goodbye–but you’re right! Bound to start bugging me, too.