Addicted

Today around 2pm, after doing AM cleaning and getting in some overtime at the office, I drove miles out of my way to get a KFC box and picked up a six-pack, then came home expecting to be able to relax in front of the TV with my KFC and beer as I watched a marathon of NBA playoffs... Only to find that my TV wasn't working.

Sometimes I get home and my apartment complex has had an electric surge that caused the cable box to go out and so I have to re-set it and the TV via the remote. (Or else the cable just messes up by itself, and I have to manually re-set the box that controls both the cable TV and the Internet service.)

This time, though, the TV just wasn't working. Its red light was on and blinking when I clicked on the remote, indicating that it was receiving electricity and signals from the remote. But the screen remained completely black.

I didn't "panic," just felt utterly defeated. I had REALLY been looking forward to eating my KFC box while watching basketball playoffs! I checked all the connections, then re-set the cable box and waited the 11 minutes or so for it to re-boot... I was trying to save the KFC, but gave up and gulped it down sans pleasure while I watched the numbers on the cable box count down as it re-booted...

At the end of the KFC and the re-boot, still nothing from the TV, except the red light indicating that it was, indeed, getting electricity. Fuck. I'd just bought the thing in December. But online, from Amazon. Did it have a warranty? How I was going to lug the big-ass thing into whatever store it came from? A couple of years ago at this same apartment complex, a severe electric storm blew out a TV that I'd also only recently purchased. I wrote that one off as a loss, but a SECOND one?? And what was I supposed to watch now? I have a smaller TV in the bedroom, but I spend most of my life in the living room (including going to sleep on the living-room couch while watching TV)...Was I going to have to now figure out how to disconnect the bedroom TV and move it to the living room? (Which I could probably NOT figure out; I'd have to pay someone to do it.)

I finally thought to just unplug the main living-room TV from the electrical outlet and re-plug it. It then "miraculously" sorted itself out and came on. After much angst!

Yeah, yeah: "First-World Problem." But I happen to have been born and raised within the "First World," and so it was an actual problem! Well, actually, my relationship with TV has not always been so powerful. Born in '65, my family had a black-and-white TV with only the three major networks up until about 1972. In '72, some workmen came into our home and carted off that old TV; my parents pretended that we were getting rid of our only TV. I started crying, only to see the same worker-guys bringing in... a new color TV! 1972 through 1983, when I left home to go to college, there was that same color TV and the same network channels, but with a few extras, like PBS and one or two random channels that showed wrestling on Saturday nights. Although at age 12 or so, I was given a small black-and-white TV for my bedroom.

From '83 through '92 or so, I carted my same black-and-white childhood TV with me from dorm to apartment. VCRs were first being offered in the '80s, but I couldn't afford to buy one, so every now and then, when I really wanted to watch some classic movies, I'd rent a VCR from a video store and lug it home and hook it up.

I finally bought my own larger color TV around '93, at a house I was renting that happened to be offering free cable TV. I've always had a color TV and cable since then.

When I had only a tiny black-and-white TV with only 5 or so stations, I'd keep it off most of the time. In my early apartments as a student in Austin, I'd come home from school or work and usually turn on music and write. Around '95 or so, pre-computer, having a TV wasn't enough. I was desperately going out 4 or so nights a week out of pure boredom with myself. After my mother bought me a computer in 2000, the computer became the focus... I'd have TV or music on in the background, just to have it on, but I was more concerned with my Internet interactions.

Today, though---the thrill of Internet interaction a few years gone---the concept of having no television screen to look at while I write at the computer is actually a bit frightening.

Here are things I'm addicted to (in no particular order):  Beer, cigarettes, TV, computer/Internet.

I've gone without beer for days at a time. I've gone without being on the computer for days at a time. I've had only 3 or 4 cigarettes per day for days at a time. But the last time I was without TV for more than a day was when I moved into my current apartment in 2017 and the cable company fucked up and didn't turn on the cable when they were supposed to. For 2 days, I tried to compensate by listening to NPR on the radio---anything to have some semblance of "life," people talking...