The flickering light of a TV set has a power unlike any other.
It’s magnetic force sucks you in with its tractor beam pull, much like the Millennium Falcon being drawn into the bowels of the Death Star.
Once caught, the audience is held captive regardless of what’s actually unfolding on the screen.
Case in point. I was totally glued to the screen at a friend’s house about three weeks ago gripped in a fevered anticipation watching... a logrolling contest.
I couldn’t help it. My eyes just zoned and fixed in a catatonic stare.
Whether we like it or not TV is the prime source of "entertainment" in today’s society, which is why I was a little hesitant about opting out of getting cable in my new house.
I’ll willingly admit that I’ve logged my fair share of hours in front of a TV set throughout my life.
Start singing "Come and knock on our door" and immediately I’m 10 years old again, sitting next to my brother in the family room, giggling hysterically along with the stilted laugh track. Every sexual double-entendre between Jack, Janet and Chrissy went right over our heads but we still loved it.
And we never really understood all the family antics at South Fork – the cheating, the lies, the family bickering over Ewing Oil. Or, more importantly, how Bobby Ewing could step out of the shower, miraculously back from the dead, after a whole season had gone by.
It didn’t matter that producers had the gall to explain away the season as a dream, Dallas remained a regularly scheduled Friday night event for the whole family.
It was an institution, much like roast beef dinner on a Sunday night.
Growing up in the ’80s, with my neon socks and feathered hair, I watched the Cosby kids, Keaton kids, Seaver kids, grow up with me.
Remember when Theo got an earring? Or when Alex was hopped up on speed to study for his exams?
Strangely enough, their parents always seemed to be so understanding about all of their mistakes.
By the time I had moved on to high school we were all effectively participating in mass hysteria and creating cultural icons out of the stars of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place.
Everyone was glued to the screens.
It was the Dallas of our time. The same intrigues and power struggles, the same backstabbing and love affairs. Instead of a wealthy, Stetson-wearing, Texas-drawling clan, this time it was spoiled, selfish, beautiful kids tearing through Beverly Hills and of course, hanging out at the Peach Pit.
We were getting a little old for the Peach Pit by the time university rolled around, although many die hard fans were still closet watchers until the bitter end.
By the time we were pursuing our post-secondary education some of us had switched to the daytime talk show circuit. Who else besides university students has time to kick back throughout the afternoon flicking between the sordid trials and tribulations unfolding on Ricki Lake , or Montel, or Jenny Jones ?
Of course, a quick fix of "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" Springer was enough to get us all off the couch and back into the library, fervently pouring over books with an ultimate goal never to appear on the Jerry Springer show.
Since then TV has been taken over by these reality shows.
Let’s face it there is nothing real about Jerry Springer – it’s all rather surreal.
So now if you’re not following Survivor, the Mole, Temptation Island, American Idol or The Bachelor well then you can hardly keep up the lunchtime office gibberish or what is politely called "water cooler conversation." It’s difficult to even follow the entertainment pages in any big daily paper.
I’ve only ever followed the first Survivor but I can see how easily these shows can get you hooked.
Looking back, it’s scary to think that TV is an easy cross-reference for periods of time in my life.
Scarier than that is tallying up the hours lost in front of the screen.
I thought life without cable would be a huge challenge.
As it’s turned out however, it’s been a welcome relief.
I’ll admit that I miss some things like when Biography is running a particularly good week, and the news and even a weekly dose of Friends .
But as one friend, who has lived without TV at various points in his life, put it:
"It’s like you emerge from a dream. Thoughts are clearer, the mind is sharper."
OK – maybe you don’t get smarter right away but there is one thing that you do get immediately – time.
Time has a whole new meaning because now it’s not broken into half-hour time slots, punctuated with a scheduled two-minute break every quarter of an hour.
Time is the major advantage to cutting the cable cord.
And with time comes everything else.
Dinner is now an event, a time in the evening to actually talk instead of wolfing down a meal, hunched over the coffee table.
After time, the next major advantage is quietness.
TV’s spew noise. They stay on even when no one is watching.
To not have a TV on is to hear the birds singing again, the chipmunks talking, the wind rustling in the trees and for those of us living in Emerald, the trains screaming across Green Lake, and the construction crews digging up the roads.
Ahhhh, quietness.
That being said, we went to Future Shop last weekend to buy a DVD player and came out much poorer with a new DVD and new flat screen TV.
I’m still not really sure why we bought a new TV when we don’t have cable.
The big purchase was due in part to this wonderful thing call a Future Shop Card where you actually leave the store without putting any money down.
Welcome to the wonderful world of credit, which is of course a whole new Pique N Yer Interest.
