Image via Wikipedia
Yes, it has happened. I’ve turned to the dark side. I’ve become the person I never wanted to be – a digital, HD-subscribing, lazy, shiftless TV watcher with not one, but four TVs. I never intended for this to happen. What have I become?
It started so insidiously. Long ago, when I first met my husband, I didn’t even know about the dark side. Sure I had watched TV as a kid, but I didn’t inhale. We only had two channels anyway, and programming stopped after the late movie, turning the screen to static or test patterns, so it was easy to stay on the good side of the force. Once I started dating my husband, we were too busy being in love, making our own granola and polishing our wire-rimmed glasses to spend much time watching TV. I was not allowed to have a TV in my dorm room, and he did not have a TV in his apartment, so soon we even forgot what shows were on the now three TV channels.
When we got married, my in-laws offered us a choice of a gift – a brand new color TV, or something else of our choosing of equivalent value. Of course we chose “something else” – what did we need a TV for when we were so in love? Besides, we were busy recycling, washing our hemp clothing and listening to the music of “Hair” on our state of the art phonograph. Still, my in-laws thought we might be out of touch without a TV, for God’s sake, so they gave us an old black and white one that a neighbor had thrown out on the curb. The on-off switch was broken, as was one of the rabbit ears, so if we did watch it we had to plug/unplug it to turn it off and on. We kept it in the spare room and dragged it out once or twice a year.
Now fast forward a few years to the arrival of those sneaky demons, otherwise known as children. We wanted to catch some educational programming for them, so we succumbed to order cable. By then it was nearly impossible to pick up anything over the airwaves with our one rabbit ear anyway. Now we had about 36 channels, including a new one that was all about sports – ES something or other. Still, we severely regulated TV in our house. The kids could not turn the TV on, as they weren’t allowed to touch the plug (still no on-off knob), and we stuck to mostly PBS and edifying shows. But, parental fatigue was a strong temptress. Tired out from being up all night with kids? Flop down in front of the TV. Cranky baby that won’t go to sleep? Johnny Carson.
Fast forward to our kid’s teen years. “Gee Mom and Dad, none of our friends have to watch an old black and white TV with no on/off switch.” So we caved and bought a state of the art used color TV. We had gone from Kansas to Oz.
With our kids leading the way, little by little we succumbed to upgrades. Our oldest son moved home and brought two TVs. Sure one of them was a state of the art 1987 and the channel changer did not work, but hey the color was great. And so it went until we arrived at the place we are today: four TVs, fancy cable, and now, finally, HD. Sure, I still forget about the HD channels and can’t remember the numbers anyway, but by gosh, the potential is there. I’m becoming the person I never thought I’d be.
© Huffygirl 2012
Related links:
- Huffy goes digital (huffygirl.wordpress.com)
- Sad to say, the high point of my week is The Middle (huffygirl.wordpress.com)
