THE OTHER DAY my son was all freaked out because he said he had to have this show DVR’d and he wasn’t going to be around to do it. He asked if I would pretty please take care of it for him. No problem.
I whipped out he ‘ol remote and started thumbing the menu options and I noticed something: None of the menus looked right. The font was wrong, the little icons were wrong, the colors of the little boxes were wrong. Was this even my TV?
Technically, it was the cable company that made the changes, not my television, but whatever, I saw the changes through my TV, which makes it my TV that changed… Just, don’t argue with me about it, it’s a minor point.
So, I was there with the control and my hand and I was absolutely flummoxed. Not that I couldn’t figure out what the buttons did, I could still actually work the thing, but it was strange that everything was so different. “When did this happen?” I asked.
My son, who hadn’t been paying any attention to me after I told him I would record his show looked up. I had to explain my whole experience to him again, about how the icons looked weird, about how the fonts and colors were different, the whole thing. His answer?
“A few months ago.”
“You’re telling me,” I said, “that they changed these doobibblies on the TV months ago and I didn’t notice?”
He nodded. “You haven’t been watching TV.”
Was that possible? "I have too!" I might have shouted it. I can't remember. But then I thought for a moment and I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd watched anything.
I used to think that I never wanted to be one of those people that didn’t watch TV, I like TV, I like lots of things about it, it makes me feel warm, it keeps me from feeling sad when I’m alone, it comforts me when I’m scared. Have I been neglecting it for that long?
I don’t think it’s been that long. I watched the Super Bowl on my TV, that wasn’t that long ago. Have I turned my back on my lifelong companion? It makes me want to give it a hug. My perception of people who didn’t watch television are of men that smoke pipes and women who don’t believe in hygiene (oh god, did I just write that?). I’m not either one of those.
So, the new me is going to try to etch out a new bloc of time to watch some TV. Anybody know if anything good is on? And don’t say Game of Thrones, because I don’t have HBO and I can’t watch it.
