I hate TV
AND
I love TV
That's hard to reconcile. When I'm in an easy mood, a mood that begs to turn on, tune in, and drop out, when I want to reward a long day of arduous computation, reckoning, negotiation and summarization with a big fat stupid night of Feet Up/Blank Stare, TV is awesome.
But when I'm in a busy mood, thinking about what needs to be done and how much of it there is to do, and someone else is sitting in front of the TV, slack-jawed and dormant, TV is the worst, most repugnant symbol of everything that's wrong with the world today.
And today, Hammerhead and his brother, at exactly 4:05 pm, as soon as I got them home from school and when I had so much more to do before I could call it a day, sat down in front of the TV and turned on "The Sopranos" (via On Demand). And you know what? Aunt Pillowhead don't play that.
According to Aunt Pillowhead, TV should not be on before 5:30. (And if you SHOULD turn it on at 5:30, you can watch Antiques Roadshow or MacNeil Lehrer, and that's all.)
So I made them turn it off. They looked at me as though I were crazy and mean. "Why?" they asked in unison.
"You know why," I said with the stepmotherly authority I have bestowed upon myself. "It's just not okay to watch TV at this hour, before you've done your homework, when it's still light outside."
"I don't have any homework," Hammerhead's brother snarled. "And it's raining."
"Oh, well!" I sang as I turned the vile contraption off, so it could rest up for later, when, at some arbitrary point in time, I will love and worship it with heart and soul.
They trudged off to their rooms and closed their doors. Later I made them a snack of leftover spaghetti and they shoveled it into their mouths with little or no comment. (And I'd even grated fresh Parmesan Reggiano on it! Go figure!)
I am crazy. And I am mean. But only until 5:30 pm. And then, with the flip of a switch, the click of a button, and the shift of an on again/off again attitude, I become sane and nice again. Like magic!
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