So
the Anderson household was recently reintroduced to the concept of
television...
We had a television long before this, of course, but since we've
been too cheap for cable and -- frankly -- neither knew nor cared
to learn what kind of pagan blood ritual we had to perform to actually
receive any basic channels in our neck of the woods, we only ever
used the stupid thing for DVDs and the X-Box.
(No videotapes though. We're all DVD snobs here. Even the hamster
turns its nose up at VHS.)
So I'm sitting on the computer one day, surfing the Internet -- because,
you know, we're NOT too cheap to get cable for the computer -- and
I get a call from our cable provider, Comcast. Assuming it wasn't
a sales call, since they're already getting my money, I went ahead
and answered.
It was a sales call. But not just ANY sales call! They wanted
to give me basic cable for a measly five dollars more than I was already
paying for the Internet connection!
(Of course, they didn't mention that this was a limited offer and
that prices would go back to normal after three months, but hey.)
So the long and the short of it is... we've got cable now. More directly,
we have television now, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel
about it.
Understand, I haven't watched more than maybe eight hours of television
A YEAR since I was in junior high, when my then-new stepfather tore
control out of my desperately clutching fingers and tried to force-feed
me a steady diet of court TV and American Gladiators. Timed
as this was to coincide with my sudden and surprising acquisition
of a social life, I never particularly missed it, and ever since then,
I've been that one guy at the party who just stares at you blankly
when you say, "Do you think Rachel and Ross will ever find true
love?"
Part of me almost feels like I've taken a step toward rejoining the
human race, as if the shared experience of that brand-new episode
of CSI is the only glue holding us all together sometimes.
I will say that, no matter what any grumpy old farts longing for the
good ol' days tell you, TV is a lot better on the whole than it was
when I left. Dramas are edgier, sitcoms aren't quite so inane. And
god... there's so much to choose from now. Hundreds of channels, and
that's without the big movie networks and the 300-some-odd variations
on ESPN that most of my friends have.
But...
I just can't get into it like I used to. Part of it is that the idea
of marking out a specific block of time every single week and not
getting paid for it just seems wrong to me. Part of it is that I always
feel like I should be doing something more productive than sweating
whether the Fab Five really will be able to make a hunk out of that
hairy man-beast on Queer Eye For the Straight Guy. Part of
it, I'm sure, is that I'm just so far out of practice. I mean, I may
be the only man in America whose wife works a full-time job and still
watches more TV than he does.
Sometimes, if I try, I can see the attraction in it, though, particularly
in the plethora of different channels you've got to choose from --
the nerd in me loves the History and Discovery Channels; the inner
child I keep whipped and locked up in a gimp-box in the basement of
my psyche adores Cartoon Network; the homebody can get sucked right
into the Food Channel. Sometimes I'll wander past the TV on my way
to the bathroom or the computer or something, and whatever's playing
will catch my eye, so I'll sit down to watch and before I know it
an hour of my life has been sucked away, sacrificed to the cruel,
cruel gods of TLC.
Like I said, television has found its way into the Anderson household,
and I'm not sure whether to rejoice or to fear it.
Probably a little bit of both.
- Russ, 11/26/03