I Lost 3 Hours of My Life

I have always been a voracious reader. I cannot read just one book at a time- I have to have a minimum of three going at any once. I never was much of a TV watcher, even as a kid. I liked reading, writing, building puzzles, and playing Scrabble and Parcheesi.

I married a man who watches TV from immediately after dinner on week days until he goes to bed. On weekends the TV is on from the time he gets up until the time he goes to bed, unless we have errands to run- then it gets turned off until we get home. (He doesn't let the cats watch TV alone, I guess.)

I find the incessant noise irritating and annoying. I like a little peace and quiet so I can think and concentrate. He's never understood that. He's from a family that sat around and did nothing but watch TV together. He feels insulted if Kelly and I leave the room because we don't want to watch TV with him. He zones out so what's the point? You ask him a question and he doesn't even hear you! My mother, sister and brother watched a lot of TV. My Dad was hard of hearing and worked 2nd shift so he'd watch on weekend nights basically. He was never into sports. As he got older he couldn't figure out how to work the remote control so gave up TV and took up reading books from the library. My brother and sister still watch a lot of television. I didn't let Kelly watch much TV at all when she was growing up. We did projects together, read, danced, listened to multi- cultural music, colored, went outside to play, took walks, and talked. I read 6 books to her every night (picture books) and then 6 chapters from chapter books as she got older, and then three chapters from classic novels when she reached 5th & 6th grade. From middle school on she read prior bedtime on her own and still prefers reading to TV viewing.

Every night after dinner she and I are in the kitchen trying to be productive and creative. I work all day so this is the only time I have to open the tap and let the creativity flow. It's annoying to have that constant noise in the background.

Therefore, tonight when I sat down at seven o'clock in the living room to play the two games I unwind with on my phone until my free lives were gone (it takes about 15 minutes total), then stayed to brush the cat (he's been shedding like mad with the hot weather)...and found myself still sitting there stupidly watching TV at 10PM I felt horrible! It was as if aliens had abducted me and brain probed me. I felt like I had lost three hours of my life. I really didn't even enjoy what was on- Chopped (with models who cook- I am so not into it's all about me people!) and a repeat of Mystery at the Museum I'd recognized from the three or four other times my husband has watched this same episode and I've had to listen to it as background noise while writing...and there must have been one other program but I honestly can't remember what it was. Suddenly it went from being 7PM to it being 10PM.

TV sucked the soul right out of me and I cannot get those three hours back! I was supposed to be completing the read through of the new novel and the editing of same. I still have 50 pages to go, but my head feels dull and all I want to do is go to bed.

I can't believe this happened. But it's made me more determined to have a quiet room when I'm retired where I can go to write and think and not be distracted and bombarded by too loud commercials, music designed to tweak your emotions, fake too cheerful people, rudeness, foul language, disrespectful children and young adults- and even senior citizens who curse like dock hands!

Is this what we've become? Is this America? Are we just a bunch of rude, crude, lewd adolescent idiots who can't get off our butts and do something productive, constructive and beneficial for our community, for society and for ourselves first and foremost? This is not reality TV, this is real life so why aren't we living it?

I want to kick TV out of my house. It's a freeloader that doesn't contribute anything of value to the household. It's turned my husband into an addict, and tonight it sucked the soul out of me for three entire hours and I am at such odds with myself about it. If I'm going to do something for 3 hours straight I'd really rather enjoy it and get something out of it rather than have this sense of emptiness and wasted time nagging at me...

I really need to go read and make amends with my brain.