Living the TV-Life - Eastside

I confess here before one and all...

I watch too much television. I'm an addict. When left to my own devices I lounge around hour after hour engrossed in the best of the most mediocre art form in existence. An art form whose sole reason for being is to pander to the lowest common denominator, so as to gather the largest possible audience, to which the evil forces on high can show nearly criminal advertisments to perpetuate a massively bloated consumer economy. I love it. LOVE IT!  LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

Mythbusters, Good Eats, American Idol, anything on the Cartoon Network, West wing, Scrubs, the Sopranos, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Malcom in the Middle, Survivor, I could go on. I'll sit ice cream spoon in hand, entranced in the lives of beautiful people doing beautiful things. (Well doing beautiful low brow things that don't cost too much to make and attract an audience long enough to push some idea about how important it is to buy the newest 'male enhancement' pill or you'll never be able to satisfy your lover. You know that kind of beautiful.)

So after many, many interventions by family and friends; dozens of near overdoses wherein veritable orgies of programming passed before my eyes for 16, sometimes 20 hours a day for entire weekends; numerous trips to the corner Best Buy to over spend once again on the newest technology to get closer to my loves; I finally hit rock bottom. I always thought of myself as the casual user. I mean yeah sometimes I 'overindulged' but those were just on the special weekends: Superbowl weekend, Thanksgiving, Christmas time, Sweeps week, Grammy week, Opening weekend of Football and Baseball, The winter months when it was cold outside anyways, the summer months when it was too hot to do anything productive outside. Besides it made me cool. I had all the shows to talk about with my friends and I knew exactly the right beer to buy in order to make someone laugh about the dancing penguin ad.

It was a moment of clarity that showed me the light. I'd just spent a few hours of light watching, you know 40 minutes of the 'Home Shopping Network' to get me hummin followed by a couple of episodes of 'Family Guy', a trip down to 'Good Eats' when the munchies hit, and finish up with some good time on the Weather Channel just to ease me back down. Well, Bam! Right in the middle of the second episode of the Family Guy the door bell rings. One of my friends wanted to head down to the park. It was a beautiful day and he was right on the money. But I'd already started gettin my fix on so I wasn't gonna head nowhere that didn't have 62 diagonal inches of telephonic goodness. So he heads off to the park and I head off to my couch. Just as I sit down. Fizztz... No lights. No power. NO TELEVISION!!

"S'Ok, it's probably just some temporary thing with the grid" I said to myself as I walked over to the window to see if I could see if anything was amiss in the street. There was a power truck at the corner. That wasn't good. I walked down to the truck. There was a hole in the ground. That was worse. In the hole in the ground there was a guy who'd clearly just accidently cut some important looking cable.

"Your power's out." The guy in the hole had an amused look on his face as he spoke.

"Yeah... It looks like you found the problem though. Fifteen, twenty minute fix?" I asked hopefully.

"Aw Hell Naw... This here's the main cable to your house and we just done cut right through it. We'll have to backhoe the old one out and plant a new one. It'll be a week, ten days at the least."

"WHAT!?!" Was all I could stammer out.

Man in the hole said, "Yeah ya see we we're supposed to be diggin a hole for a new underground transformer and well we found your main power line instead." He laughed as if this were some kind of weird party game.

"No no no no! You get this power back up right now! I'm not going ten days without my power! Without my TV!" I lost it.

"TV? Hell if I were you I'd be worryin'more about how to keep all the 'fridge from goin' bad." Man in hole seemed to care not one whit about the stark life he'd just sunk me into. "You wanna complain you'll have to call the power office. Our Truck's ID number is on the bumper."

"ARHHGGGHH!!" Was the only audible noise I was capable of making. I stormed off into my house and sat in front of my dark television, willing the black screen to flicker and come on. Nothing. In mid fix I was left without. I had nothing. Tears began to stream down my face at the prospect of going ten days like this. My life was over.

That was the bottom. The next day was harder, the day after that harder still. But I learned and I grew and I became a human again.

So it was with great confidence and joy that a week after the power had come back on I was still not entangled in the power of the networks. I was cured! Or so I thought. The next evening tragedy struck. I caught a glimpse of a promo for a new show on a friends set. I told myself, "I'll just watch this one show then off it'll go." Fifteen hours later I'd missed work, I'd missed a meeting with my friends, I'd lost my self-esteem.

The TV had to go. Disgusted with myself I flicked off the switch of the TV and pulled the plug out of the wall. But that wasn't enough. I have to cut it off at the source. I had to call the satellite company.

The phone rang on the other side. I sat listening to the automated teleprompt asking me if I wanted to have the conversation in Spanish. A bead of sweat rolled down my head. There was no going back once the call was over. No more TV.

"Yes how can I help you?" The voice on the other end asked.

"I'd like to cancel my service." I nearly choked on the words. Those were the hardest words I ever had to say.

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that. May I ask why you'd like to cancel?" The sweat voice asked.

"I watch too much television. I love it too much."

Silence.

"You'd like more channels?" The voice on the phone asked inquisitively.

Didn't I just say that I wanted to cancel my service because I watched too much TV? I went through in my mind the words that I had spoken to her. "No, I'd like to cancel my service."

"But you love TV? I don't understand. Are you sure you don't want more channels?"

Apparently this had never happened to her before. No one had ever called up to request that they remove thier services from thier home to get away from it. I didn't know what to say.

"What?! No I want to get rid of the television. I waste too much time watching it."

"Uhhh... I'll have to get my supervisor. Please hold"

I began to see that maybe, just maybe I wasn't alone. Maybe there were others. More like me; that were even now hooked on to the television teat and would never be able to release themselves from its grasp.

"Hello I'm Maria how can I help you?" the supervisor broke in.

"Uh yea I was just explaining that I'd like to cancel my service because I watch too much TV..."

"Oh why would you want to do that? The fall lineup is just getting set."

"Umm.. no you see I've been wasting too much time watching tv. I need less of it in my life."

Now I understood. She was an expert. She was the hired pusher. "Come on baby just have one last hit for old times sake," was her line. Bastards! They would stop at nothing to keep me linked in watching thier cat food commercials, thier hot dog commercials, cars, houses, dish washing detergent, insurance commercials. ANYTHING.

"No I'd like my services cancelled." I stood my ground.

"Well let me just pull up your account.", a pause, "I see that you've been with us for many years mister Briggs. I can offer you an additional package of 30 more channels for only five dollars more than you're paying now." She plied me with her wares. It nearly worked. Fantasies of the full channel package danced in my head. I steeled my resolve.

"No, I'd like my services cancelled."

I could feel her Cheshire smile through the phone. "Aww now why would you want that? There's going to be nothing for you to do on the days when you're bored." Her voice sounded a little more insistent. More pressing. She was making sense. What was I gonna do? No. I musn't give in.

"No."

Apparently giving up she began to click away on her keyboard. I was wrong. "Yep. I just IM'ed my supervisor and he's willing to let you scale your service back to just our basic package of 40 channels. Why don't we do that? I'll just get the changes in the system here."

"No! I want my service cancelled! None of your tricks will work! Be gone from me temptress!" I was angry now. Angry at these Bastard scums that were doing everything they could to keep me hooked.

"This is really your best option mister Briggs. This way if you feel like watching television you can, but there won't be as much on. It's only 40 channels afterall..." Her ploy was well worn. She'd offered this one up to many poor addicts before.

"No! I want out! I don't want to be part of your audience any more!"

Her demeanor changed. Her true nature revealed itself. She was a devil. Full winged and taloned, clawed for battle she had struck her best blows but not her last. "You'll be back! We'll have you yet." She scowled as she completed the cancellation papers.

Then it was over. I'd taken the red pill and lived. There were so many more in their grips though, so many more that there was no help for.

So that's my story. That's how it ended. I gotta go now though. Theres a new game out for Playstation that I've been just dying to play...