TV tropes told Amelia Tait that life would be spent crawling through ventilation shafts and avoiding quicksand. The reality was very different… until now

When I was old enough to know better but young enough for it to still be an excuse, I used to try and run through walls like Wile E. Coyote. I was enthralled by the neat silhouette he left after crashing through stone and brick, and I was curious about whether it was possible for a human to achieve the same thing (mercifully, I at least attempted it with cardboard). My young mind could not fully grasp the distinction between cartoon physics and real physics. 

This is all to say: television lies. We turned it on after school and trusted it with five, six, sometimes even seven, uninterrupted hours of our time, and all we got in return was untruth after untruth after untruth. Television told us that when we grew up, we would frequently go for breakfast with our friends before work; it told us said friends would live in vast, affordable apartments right across the hall.

TV also made us think we’d get stuck in quicksand regularly; that the only way to declare our love was by running through airport security; that we could get knocked out cold and not require immediate medical attention. There are, in fact, numerous, things that happen on TV that almost never happen in the real world. But then again, why not? Why not step outside the box? I decided to do just that, spending a month bringing as many TV tropes to life as I could. 

TV TROPE: CRAWLING THROUGH VENTS

You cannot crawl through vents like an action hero in real life, because when you reach a bend, you will find it’s equipped with big bits of metal called vanes and dampers that control the flow of air. Not only this, but many ducts are also fitted with “burglar bars” that prevent people from climbing around inside. I learned this after emailing 17 ductwork suppliers and manufacturers to ask if I could crawl around in their vents – just one replied. 

The heroes at Southern Ductwork in Bracknell responded with astounding equanimity and grace to my request. Extremely game to help me bring a TV trope to life, they set up some ductwork on the ground outside their factory – sans the tricky metal-filled bends that would trap me inside forever. They even had a lighter available so I could cosplay as Bruce Willis. I have never and will never meet better men. 

So, what is it like crawling through big metal ducts? At first – as you might imagine – it is quite claustrophobic and mildly frightening. But quickly, the space came to feel cosy, even oddly calm. It would be a lie to say I could’ve stayed in there all day – but TV lies so why can’t I? 

TV TROPE: DRINKING FROM AN EMPTY COFFEE CUP

Have you ever noticed how whenever anyone drinks takeaway coffee on TV, their cup is always very obviously empty? Sure, this is so production can avoid messy spills and tricky continuity errors, but I prefer to imagine that people in TV-world drink air. So, for one afternoon, that’s exactly what I did.

I offered to pay, but the kind man in Costa gave me a cup for free. I thought I was on my way to meet a friend in the park but, mortifyingly, she already had three other friends with her when me and my cup arrived. I could see one of them eyeing my drink suspiciously and felt the kind of embarrassment I hadn’t felt since my trousers had fallen down while crawling through some ducts. It was apparent that my friend’s friend was wondering why my cup was so pristine – why it was clearly empty but also clearly unused. I did not enlighten him, for I felt ashamed. 

TV TROPE: HAVING BREAKFAST WITH FRIENDS BEFORE WORK

It took an entire month to organise a breakfast date with five of my most morning-person people, and by the time the morning in question arrived, only three of us made it. One friend flaked because she was heavily pregnant and was giving birth in a week – I don’t recall that stopping Phoebe or Rachel. Another friend had to drop her daughter off at nursery, but again, Ross left Ben to fend for himself.

While the Friends-friends had the conveniently located Central Perk to catch-up in before heading off to a busy day, finding somewhere central to host all of my pals proved extremely tricky. One poor friend had to wake up at 6:20am and take two tubes and a train to get to our 8am breakfast date, and alas, there wasn’t even a comfy orange sofa for her to slump into when she arrived. 

But despite all the difficulties, it was beyond delightful. I left for work with an absolute pep in my step, thrilled to have nattered with two happy, shining faces before confronting the big bad of my inbox. Maybe TV isn’t a liar – maybe it just wants to show us a better way? 

TV TROPE: NOT SAYING “BYE” WHEN HANGING UP THE PHONE

At breakfast, I had floated the idea of shouting “I object!” at my friend’s wedding but she was not amenable to the idea. Apparently, the priest would’ve taken this quite seriously, and it would’ve perhaps ruined the vibes of the carefully-curated day (I fail to see how). So instead, I opted to go for a slightly softer social abnormality that we see over and over again on TV: people never say “bye” before they hang up the phone. 

Somehow, this was the most difficult TV trope of all. If there’s anything I refuse to be in this life it’s deterred (hence emailing 17 duct factories), but time and time again, my brain slipped out a “bye” before I could stop myself when hanging up the phone. I am but a dog and the world my Pavlov. 

Eventually, I successfully prevented myself from saying goodbye when on the phone with my mum. I felt so guilty that I instead just said “love you” between 20 and 25 times. Nonetheless, I still felt guilty afterwards, as the bye-less air vibrated around my ears. Television, you know not what you’ve done. 

TV TROPE: BECOMING TWO KIDS IN A TRENCH COAT

Sometimes in life, we have to question whether we need better friends. None of mine would allow me to stack their children on top of each other and tuck them inside a trenchcoat, which is – to my mind – health and safety gone mad. But, once again bravely undeterred, I called up my buffest friend and asked him to carry me on his shoulders while I ordered a coffee. He said yes, and shot to the top of my mental MySpace Top 8. 

I have a phobia of being carried on people’s shoulders ever since I got amnesia after falling off my then-boyfriend’s back during a piggyback race (you don’t see that on TV). I therefore shrieked an unsettling amount while we walked about, but the best thing about London is that everyone staunchly refuses to look at each other, no matter how many people are inside a trench coat. And so we reached the coffee shop’s walk-up window completely uninterrupted. 

Instead of ordering a coffee, I opted for a loaf of bread (I didn’t want to spill a hot drink on my friend’s head). The kind man behind the counter had to stretch the card machine upwards while my friend squatted (opportunities like this are the reason why so many people spend so much time lifting weights). It felt great to overcome a phobia, and also to have a loaf of bread. 

TV TROPE: MOISTURISING MY ARMS BEFORE BED 

If there’s one thing a fictional woman loves to do, it’s moisturise her arms before bed. For TV producers, this is a great way to both show a woman in a negligee and distract from the fact that she insists on talking. In real life, it is something women’s magazines say I should do and which I refuse to, because it is boring and time-consuming and sticky to boot. 

Nonetheless – for journalism – I did moisturise my arms before bed every night for a week. There is very little to say about this, except that my elbows are softer now.

What did I learn from living life inside a TV? Almost nothing. At the end of my experiment, it became quite apparent why most TV tropes are restrained to the screen. I would not do any of them again – even the breakfast thing. But at least the next time I watch television, I can nod knowingly at my fictional peers. For the briefest moment, I was just like them. Except Wile E. Coyote. He alone can go where no man has gone before, leaving a pristine outline behind him. 

• Amelia Tait is a freelance journalist and the author of Lily Tripp: Diary of an Accidental Time Traveller