The Cable TV Discussion

Sometimes I really feel like the evil wife.

"I just would like to watch a baseball game now and then!"

This was my husband's plea for cable TV. Part of me wants to cave. The guy works so hard, accepts so much, and asks for so little. Yet I stand my ground.

"It's like crack for the brain!" is my lame retort. He gives me the old you-are-really-overdramatizing-this look. "No, really! It calls to you, like this, 'Come, just come and see what's on TV....' and you're drawn to it." I didn't need to elaborate--he knows what comes next. You spend 15 minutes going through the channels to end up watching Mythbusters or Deadliest Catch re-runs. Yup, good shows, but guess what? They're available on Netflix. You watch them anyway.

Enter: the children. "Aw, you're watching Mythbusters!!!! Can I watch?" Then, before you know it, a commercial comes on for something scary, and the next 5 months are spent leaving lights on at night and discussing how to tame one's imagination, and reassuring your child that they are safe. Next commercial? Some great new show on Egyptian Mythology that's coming on in two weeks. It gets engraved on the internal calendar in the child's head, and you hear about it "coming on in (x) days" for the remainder of the countdown.

Before you know it, husband is asleep in the chair, and the kids have their TV wish list planned out for the next month. Even if you tell them no, they can't watch TV every night for the next eon, the whole scenario repeats itself tomorrow night for the History Channel.

I think I'd rather be evil every few months when the discussion comes up, and keep more quality time intact, then be vile (just an anagram of evil) every night because I'm always competing with programming.

For now, no cable. I'm holding my ground.