If you need me on Wednesday night, I’m sorry, but I’ll be unavailable. You know what happens this week, right? It’s season premier week for all my favorite TV shows!
Prior to becoming a momma, I rarely watched TV. I would set my VCR to record NBC on Thursday nights from 6:57 to 7:34. That’s right. I loved my Friends. Other than that, it just didn’t work into our schedule to actually sit down and watch TV. We had other things to do: we’d read books, our laundry was always caught up, the house was clean, we socialized with friends.
Now, it still doesn’t fit into our schedule to actually sit down and watch TV, but thanks to the marvel that is modern technology, we have DVR and can record live TV with the touch of a button (instead of a 15-minutes programming session with the VCR).
This little device that allows us to start recording our favorite show, pause it and then watch it 10 minutes later so we can fast forward through the commercials (except that one where the guy does the flash mob all by himself because his phone doesn’t deliver messages fast enough). This has streamlined our lives! No more do I waste my time doing laundry. No more do I actually dust my furniture. And Friends (on TBS at 5:00 and 5:30 every week night) is my only “friend” socialization.
It’s not that I miss sorting and matching the 3,000 pair of socks that The Daughters produce each and every week from September through May. But, I do miss going to bed at a decent hour. It seems that with DVR, we, as a society, have found it perfectly acceptable to let our daily chores and our daily thoughts and our daily relationships go by the wayside in order to see exactly what happened to those crazy Guidos and Guidettes on the Jersey Shore. (Yes, I watch it. No, you can’t judge me.)
Last week as we were driving to school, both of The Daughters were talking at the same time. The conversation was so chaotic that in the middle of it, someone hollered out “Pause!” and pressed her thumb into her index finger as if holding a remote. OK, that was me.
Sadly, we’ve let TV take over our lives. It’s our babysitter, our water-color conversation, our social outlet, our therapy. DVR has not made our lives more convenient; it’s become our absolute dictator.
Please understand: I’m not saying that we should do away with our “stories” – whenever they may air and whenever we may watch them. But, we should realize that they should be just a part of our lives – and not the whole of our lives. Our television shows can be, in fact, a very real source of therapy for some of us who have had a chaotic day and just want to relax and watch Phil completely blunder some special day for Clair in Modern Family.
My goal this TV season is not to keep up on my shows no matter what the cost. Rather, my goal is to keep up on my life. After all, life doesn’t allow me to pause those special moments.
