My little sister says I’m snobby about TV. She might be right, although I only know a few people who could sit through the mindless rubbish she calls quality TV. She thinks I’m boring to watch public TV or the History Channel or when we go to the video rental store, she makes fun of my habit of choosing a tasteful or smart independent flick over a stupid Adam Sandler movie or the latest blockbuster. She will watch the movie of the week starring some has-been actress about a hospital baby-switching case or anorexia and and bawl her head off and then TAPE it so this whole process can be easily repeated. And if that’s not enough, she will pick THE lamest show on the whole TV shedule to watch.
Once upon a time when we were roommates (she was 20 and I was turning 22), I would frequently come home to find her glued to the set with ABC’s TGIF lineup of shows (you know the night they played crap like ‘Family Matters’, ‘Full House’, and ‘Step By Step’) blaring from it. I’d gleefully suggest other things to watch, “There’s a concert on xyz channel,” “Hey, ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ is on right now” or “Let’s watch the Independent Film Channel!” she was unfazed, saying she could watch whatever she wanted and it wasn’t going to be what I suggested. I moved in like a salesperson, pointing out that she was a smart girl and had better taste than that, there was quality stuff to be watched on TV! She once exlaimed almost tearfully that TGIF had nothing but “Good shows on, and I like them! Why do you think they’re STILL RUNNING, then?!” I tried to argue that “TGIF is shit and never has anything good on and only morons watch it and since the world is overpopulated with morons, that’s where the ratings factor comes in.” She shrugged and decided to walk away because she (like the rest of my family) cannot stand to be told anything, let alone have a mild, good-natured debate. I ignored her and thought well, good enough, perhaps next time she’ll check the TV guide channel first and choose something with a smidge of taste or culture or even remotely entertaining, hell…she might even enjoy it for a change.
Not more than a day later, I came home to find her on the edge of her seat, thoroughly enjoying Urkel, at the time that the show was past it’s prime, and it was the episode where they decided to have Urkel and whats-her-butt go to France. I sighed and tried to ignore this, by going into the kitchen to make dinner. The wretched Urkel giggles and snorts coming from the TV (which haunt me to this very day) made me wince, but I resolved to continue chopping the veggies. I gripped the knife, filled with so much digust my knuckles were turning white and could stand it NO FUCKING LONGER. I went in there and threatened her. I forbade her to watch this ridiculous show, screaming at the top of my lungs that “We. Have. CABLE. Which I PAY FOR!” and would stand for no more of this shit, and furthermore “You can start paying for the cable if you’re going to watch this trash or we can cut it off altogether!” There. I thought, that was that. I come home the next day and “Full House” is on. I had given up and decided she was destined to a life of crap taste in entertainment. She’s now married and has a kid (sucker!) and every now and again I go to visit her. It’s not uncommon to find she’s got “America’s Funniest Videos” on, or reruns of “Boy Meets World”.
My mom is worse, but there’s no arguing with her, either. She watches crap like, “Murder, She Wrote”, “Father Dowling Mysteries”, “Touched By An Angel”, “Judging Amy”, “Diagnosis: Murder” and just about every Danielle Steele book-turned-lame-movie or shitty, made-for-TV miniseries, including those lame-ass Hallmark movies. Bleaaaahhh.
Before I had a dialup internet connection to make my line gloriously busy, she would call at all hours and tell me that there was a special episode of “Matlock” on but she was going somewhere that night and would I tape it for her? Ack.
Now she just calls and when I’m online she leaves messages. “Hello? Pick up it’s your mother!”.
Later, when we’re together I say, “Mom, “It’s not a machine with a speaker to hear you! It’s the phone service’s digital voice messaging and I can’t hear you until I call the service to get my messages.”
“Well, no big deal, I got so-and-so to tape the show for me. Anyway, the least you can do is pick up and say hello!” Oh boy.
There’s just no telling her.
Then again she’s the one who thinks she has SuperNet.
“You’ll have to come over here some time to look at my internet.” Look at her internet. Like it’s all HERS. “Okay mom, what did you do, now?”
“Well it’s not so much what I did but what the e-mail did. You know, I go into the computer room and turn it on and then start email (which is automatically configured to dial up an online connection when it starts) and then sometimes it just takes so damned long to load (probably only cause checks her e-mail no more than twice a year!), so while it’s loading, I go into the other room and make some calls. The computer says ‘offline’ when I come back and I have to start all over again.”
She does this all the time. “Mom you can’t use the phone while you’re getting e-mail…it uses the ONE phone line while you’re online.”
“I wasn’t ON line. I was getting my e-mail. I never went ON line for anything.” She says ON line when she’s referring to browsing the web. Two words. Plus she thinks if she’s not LOOKING at a web site, well then, she’s not ON line. I have to explain that she is: “Think about it, mom–how did you think your computer’s able to get e-mails from cousin Peg who lives far away? Or any e-mails for that matter–you have to CONNECT to the internet by going online and using your phone line, which dials up your e-mail service. Just like when you switch over the phone line to use your fax machine.” Of course she would never figure this out on her own, since her comp’s so old it freezes on a simple command and her modem never sounds, because the other thing about her computer being so old is, her modem is attached to her system’s sound card and wouldn’t you know, mom never has the speakers on loud enough to hear the dialing sound!
“Oh. Well, for crying out loud, how can I expect to get much done with all that going on?”
*Sigh*
This is the reason I once tried to get her to setup a cable internet connection:
“But I don’t want cable! I can’t afford it and besides, I’m never home enough to watch normal TV, let alone to justify getting cable.”
I give up on her, too.
…career-wise. I’ll be going into more detail later. Right now I’m just killing time.
So I took Colleen’s 80’s lyrics quiz to see how well I would fare.
I figured, what the hell, I was born in ’73, grew up on this stuff but for some reason I got shitty scores on hard stuff and lots of points for stuff I thought was easy. Then she chided me for not ‘memorizing’ the Breakfast Club soundtrack! Oh well.
More later!