Hello, my name is Bruce. I’m a TV addict. I’m not a social media addict. Anymore. I was a social media addict. I scrolled for 6 hours a day. I looked at cats. I looked a people. I looked at news. Fake and real. I couldn’t stop swiping. My fingers grew webs and stuck to my phone screen. I had to get them surgically removed. It wasn’t covered by insurance. I had to pay "out of pocket." As if I have that much money just sitting in my pocket. It was $2,000. I had 20 bucks and a few pennies. Anyway I had to get my fingers surgically removed from my phone screen. I told myself never again. Never again will I become addicted to a rectangular object with a screen. But lo and behold I became addicted to a bigger rectangular object. My flat screen TV. Are any TVs not flat screen now? Does that date me?
But now as I said I’ve become addicted to TV. I love TV. I don’t know if I just love sitting on the couch or watching the TV. I think I could just sit on the couch. I could scroll on my phone on the couch. But if I did that on a Wednesday I’d be cheating. I’d be cheating myself out of a life. I didn’t grow up to become a professional scroller. This was not my plan as a child. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” the teacher would ask. “I want to be an astronaut,” some kid would say. “I want to be a professional athlete,” some other kid would say. Sometimes a smartass would say “I want to train dolphins how to perform brain surgery on idiots.” But I would just say, “I’m not so sure. I want to explore my options. Maybe I’ll be come an astrophysicist and get the sun to revolve around the earth. Or maybe I’d like to be a professional bird watcher and get paid to sit in the park and watch pigeons.” Sometimes the teacher would see through my smartassery and say, “You know pigeons don’t like to be watched. They’re very private birds.” And I’d say, “Well why do they crowd around my feet when I’m sitting on the bench eating popcorn?”
But never in my wildest dreams, or even my not-so-wild dreams did I think I’d become a professional TV watcher. It’s just so addicting. I mean, all you have to do is get hooked by a series with 7 seasons and 12 episodes in each season…and well, you do the math. That’s a helluva lot of time sitting on the couch watching a screen. The big screen. I want a bigger TV. I only have a 48” tv. I want a 115” TV. I want something so big I have to claim it as a dependent on my taxes. I want a wall of screen sucking me in to the digital void.
I will sit in front of my new digital god and meditate. I'll eat my free-range oatmeal in front of my TV. I'll do yoga in front of my TV with some rainforest screensaver. It will be so real I'll think in in the rainforest doing the stork pose. Only I won't get bit by mosquitos.
But I don’t want it wall mounted. That’s too hard. Sitting on the couch and looking up at the ceiling craning my neck just to catch the actors in some dumb series. No, I want it on the floor. I'll sit 6 inches from the screen. And when some kids jump into a pool of green slime on a reality show I'll get hit with the slime I'll be so close.
I’ll sit cross-legged on the floor. Praying to the god of the screen. I’ll eat popcorn. I’ll wave incense, frankincense and myrrh in front of the TV. I’ll bless the TV. I’ll say prayers and chant incantations to make sure my WIFI doesn’t go out.
And then I’ll float down a river of digital bliss.
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