Listening to Television
Mon., May 28, 12:45 PM
Lately I've been listening to a lot of television. That's not new, of course. If you read TV addict, which I wrote in 2002, you know that I had the television on a lot when the children were little and I was home a lot. I seldom just sat in front of it, though; I walked through my chores listening to it. The children might or might not have been watching. My intent, which usually worked, was to get them to think about some of the content that was coming in. (I still think that mothers are a better solution than a V-chip — or whatever you call those things.)
In any case, I am trained by radio to listen. Watching is occasionally problematic when vision is poor, but my hearing is still keen. And I don't even have to be in the same room. I can lie down, imagining what is on the screen, just as I did when radio drama was our entertainment of choice. If the program is one I have already seen — CSI maybe — it's even easier to imagine. I have discovered that the History Channel is especially easy to follow.
Because I find this restful, I often set the timer to turn the television off a few minutes after I expect to go to sleep. It means I use the television a lot more hours each week, but it also means that I get use of the hideously expensive cable.
Then, of course, there is Husband. I hide the remote so that he cannot change the channel just because he thinks I'm asleep. And I had to tell him not to turn it off because it would go off by itself.
Now Husband thinks I am “out to get him,” because I refuse to take him to the store. His lungs are so bad that he just can't walk more than a few feet without being out of breath. It is bad enough to have to push a wheelchair through the medical center, but I will not do it in the supermarket — where, after all, I have a separate agenda. However, M.D. and her husband were kind enough to offer to take him on Saturday, and I guess he was no more obnoxious than usual. (Once in a while he remembers that he has to be polite to people who don't live with him.) He came home feeling pretty perky, spent a couple of hours putting away his loot — mostly cookies and candy that he shouldn't have.
Sometime in the middle of the night, he pulled out his new flashlight and proceeded to work on the cable connection in his room. I know it was the middle of the night because my television was fine when I went to bed, but it was wrong when I got up. The one news-type show I watch regularly is “CBS Sunday Morning,” and I could barely see it.
I yelled at him — of course I did — and told him not to touch my set; just go and undo what he had done in his room. He couldn't. Son came to visit — a separate story altogether — and when he went to tell Husband he had to leave, Husband then asked him if he could fix the television. (I don't know how many times he has made Son late that way.) Anyhow, to have a really good connection now, we need a new wire that we do not have, and Son was frustrated too. Not nearly as frustrated as I was with Husband, whom I have warned about this before.
Son did bring me a new monitor, however, and I was able to read a lot longer than usual. I forgot to get up and give Husband his supper; well, I might as well stay here, since I can't watch tv. Maybe I finally got through to him.
In any case, I was awakened this morning before six because Husband was fooling with my television set. “Leave it alone; you can't fix it.” Finally he stopped knocking things off that counter. (There are times when I wonder if he has a death wish.) After I gave him his breakfast, U.D. and I went out.
When we got back, my television was working. I don't know how he did it, probably at the expense of his own viewing. Besides, he would get upset if he couldn't watch “Wheel of Fortune” with his supper. I guess I'll let him live awhile.
Maybe being able to watch “Match Game” this afternoon will help me feel better about the death of Charles Nelson Reilly. I can't remember the last time I felt this bad at the passing of an entertainer. I had been watching Charles for a long time.
I do not remember whether I was consciously aware of his orientation at the beginning; I did recognize that he was strange, and strange minds often made brilliant comedy. I hated his character on “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”, but I was seeing him on talk shows too. Here is one of the punchlines that I always remembered.
During a gasoline shortage in the seventies, there was an effort to stop drivers from topping off their tanks every chance they got. One method was to allow drivers to fill up only on odd or even days of the month, matching the license plate. Charles, unfortunately, paid little attention to the restrictions and, as he told Merv Griffin, he went to get gas on the wrong day. They told him he couldn't buy gas that day because he “wasn't odd.”
And Charles replied, “I've been odd all my life. Why is this different?”
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm gonna miss him.
