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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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It’s taken me nearly 40 years, but I’ve finally decided it’s time: I’m going to marry My Television. Our de facto relationship has gone on too long. It’s time to come out and publicly celebrate my affection for the old box and acknowledge my deep dependence on her.
I turn her on and keep her warm and glowing; and she just keeps me watching. She’ll never suffer attention deficit syndrome— that’s what I love about My Television.
My children are happy about the decision too.
They’re keen to live with Television, as long as there’s colour in her cheeks and she’s in good working order.
Even my wife agrees. Television, she says, deserves to be a part of our relationship.
(After all, it always has been.) Cohabitation is definitely no longer cool; matrimony is better.
I mean, I come home from work after talking about what was on her all day and there she is. She begins with a whisper at first, then as the noise in my home builds up—what with tables to set, with Lego to be picked up off the floor and rubbish to be taken out—My Television eventually gets louder.
But she’s never too loud or aggressive and never out of control. In fact, with Television, there are no tantrums and no objections at all to being shut up. If only we all had mute buttons! n Television now has fifty-one personalities (and counting). Whatever my mood, she can be adjusted to fit it. Like spirits channelled in from the ether, Television answers all my questions, and by remote control too.
I don’t have get up out of my chair and twiddle her knobs anymore. I just take this little gizmo in my hand and press this button here and voilà, she shows me something, emptying my head of stress and whispering sweet nothings in my ears.
My headache disappears as soon as her seductive images of impossible success, youth, wealth and power pour into it.
I love My Television because she never lets me remember or forget. The past is always present somewhere in her land.
Advertisements are repeated as if I have no memory at all. Repeats and premiers, the familiar and the fantastic—she’s got them all, in wide screen and flat screen, stereo and home-theatre too.
What is especially endearing about My Television is that she is already trained as wet nurse and day-care centre. Television really does know how to watch over my children. She knows how to keep them glued to the spot, passive and entranced.
And she’s cheap to run. And there’s no maintenance to pay either. If she wears out, some charity will come, put her in a box, and take her away. No messy divorce papers, no funeral bills.
So that’s basically why I’m going to do something nuptial about it. It’s time for a wedding. Man and machine in one blessed union. Flesh and fibre optics fused forever with “I do, I do, I do” (as Abba put it). Do it in your own lounge with your own Television. Some 90 per cent of all Australian homes have one.
And we average about three-and-a-half hours watching our TVs every day. So why not do the right thing and marry it.
If none of the above is reason enough, just think of what you owe your television.
It gives you a picture of reality (albeit distorted); it tells you what is right (according to the market forces); and it tells you what matters (you more than anything else).
TV affects your attitudes, your perspective, and your behaviour. Hey, you may even come to distrust your own life experiences and friends (according to recent American research), and be unable to distinguish the reel from the real. But you can’t have everything can you? No, it’s time to get hitched to your TV for life.
The honeymoon will be endless.
Breaking news: Some people think even Jesus will turn up on television soon—or someone impersonating Him.
(But will we care?)
Extract from Signs of the Times, September 2002.
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