TV-Challenged

There was a time when I could turn on the TV all by myself.
That was in the days before Wii and VCRs complicated my life and introduced a set of at least three remotes into our household.
Maybe it’s just me but I call this phenomenon “Tyranny of the Remote.”
Occasionally, I get really fed up. My thinking goes something like this, “I am a college- educated person, for heaven’s sake, it can’t be that hard.”
After punching endless button combinations and resisting the urge to throw the annoying devices through the TV screen, I finally do what any sensible, college-educated person would do.
I call my son.
When he quits laughing, he walks me through the process again.
This never happens when he is home for one simple reason; the men in my life wouldn’t trust me with the clicker even if I did know how to use it. That’s because they tend to view the History Channel as a quick blip on the screen between Walker, Texas Ranger and Psyche.
I’m doomed to endless reruns of tough guy, manly stuff; superhero cartoons for big boys.
I like the fact that my men are so simple in their approach to TVs. They simply want the biggest, brightest, loudest one they can find.
Yes, sirree. They simply march in, make the purchase, take it home, then fiddle with the buttons until it does what it is supposed to. No technological challenge is too overwhelming; it distract them for one minute that there will be endless cables to hook up or programming to install.
We recently bought a new cabinet to hold the TV.
My biggest problem with it is that it came with a gigantic, gaping hole for the flat screen. Plus, there’s no way our extensive collection of John Wayne movies are going to fit in a few small drawers. And there’s no place in it for all the boxes we save.
I don’t really get the logic of holding onto the shipping boxes. I guess my brain shuts down as I try to figure out where to put them without causing a fire hazard.
Then, as I rack my brain, surveying the collection of corrugated cardboard in the attic, trying to remember which Sony and RCA products we actually still own, it suddenly dawns on me!
Maybe the reason my guys have brain cells for using the remote is because they aren’t distracted by Life’s Peripherals.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at http://checklistcharlie.blogspot.com or cathykrafve@gmail.com.