A few years ago I parked in front of our house one evening after dark. There wasn’t much light in our old neighborhood, except for the flashing light coming from our front window. Thinking that our then teenaged daughter was having some sort of wild party, I approached quietly and with caution, in my best Mommy Dearest mode. There was no party, and in fact, no teenaged daughter anywhere around. My husband was watching something on TV and was channel surfing so fast that it looked like flashing strobe lights through the window. Remote controls are kind of necessary in these modern times with 257 channels of mostly shopping and music networks with a few old movies and some sports thrown in. I use my remote to zip through the commercials, since I DVR almost everything I watch these days. HE watches two or three (or four) different things at the same time, flipping back and forth while keeping up with whatever it is he was watching in the first place. It gives me a headache. I don’t pay much attention to what he watches because he likes sports, sports, and SPORTS. The secret to a (mostly) happy marriage between someone who watches sports, sports, and SPORTS and someone who doesn’t, doesn’t, and DOESN’T is for the one who doesn’t to either bite her tongue and read a good book or have separate TV rooms. I chose the separate room option. Reading a good book didn’t work that well for me because some sports fanatics get a little excited if the Minnesota Vikings are losing and it can be hard not to keep reading the same page over and over. Besides, the constant channel surfing drives me crazy. Not long ago, we were watching an interesting documentary on the Civil War. Together. In the same room. Be still, my heart. I almost reached over to hold his hand when a commercial came on and he immediately changed over to a ball game. I waited. After several minutes of waiting for him to turn it back, I rather pointedly nodded toward the TV and said, “Well?” “Well, what?” he asked, feigning innocence. “I just saw this show a couple of weeks ago, and besides, you already know who won the war.” I don’t think he would have let go of the remote long enough to hold my hand, anyway. I know that there are those of you who think that I make most of this stuff up. This week, I have photographic proof that this is a true story. Just in case you don’t have a clear picture of the two remotes, the one on the left has most of the numbers worn off, while the one on the right is pristine. Which is which? Whose is whose? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
The Minnesota Farm Woman 
I don’t know, Chris….I still think we married the same man! I let him have the big TV in the living room. I’ll slip up to the bedroom for my own TV time. Sometimes he gets there first and puts on his “shows”. Then I have to wait for him to fall asleep (sometimes half an hour) before I change the channel! 🙂
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Touching the remote doesn’t wake him up? I think mine gets an electric shock that wakes him if I even go near it while he’s asleep!
Chris
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Oh no! I turn the sound down and watch with those subtitles. He usually doesn’t notice. Hard on you that must be!
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This my life! Are you me? Am I you? Are we we? 🙂
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Yessirree!
Chris
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Oh, Chris… Is it genetic? Is this incessant channel surfing truly a male medically-irreversible trait??? Not only the strobe light effect, but the rapid-fire changing of sounds — can he at least channel surf using the mute button???
My husband not only loves, loves, LOVES sports, but is a former sportswriter. And now, may God forgive me, the fool is going deaf. So now it has become SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS!!! Deafening, never-ending SPORTS.
Have you been listening to me here in Ohio the past couple of weeks – especially over Thanksgiving weekend??? We either married twins, or perhaps you and I were separated at birth…
I’ve tried the “separate tv rooms” approach, too. Because the family room has the cozy fireplace which I love and he says makes the room too hot, I chose a lovely new flatscreen for him last Christmas — for his just-as-large-as-the-family-room study which has an entertainment center, recliner, sofa & big windows. But no, he opted to put his new prize in the family room. Other rooms in the house with TV’s are less appealing to me than the one with that lovely fireplace…
I might buy myself a new TV, comfy chair and fake fireplace for this room where I read the tales of women who, too, live impaired lives with channel-surfing-sports-fanatic husbands… A “Me Cave.”
Emma Ann
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I have wondered if mine is going deaf, also. I have not read any of my favorites since before Thanksgiving, but have them all saved on my email so I can catch up! Can’t wait to read about your Thanksgiving adventures.
Chris
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Yes and who knew that random Y chromosome was attached to a TV remote, surely this behavior is genetic coding. 😉
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It is a little different here…
While he does hoard the controllers, he watches NASCAR! Blech. He also likes to build things, like computers, and recorders for the TV’s in our home, as well as his ‘gaming’ computer. This is all well and fine, except that it is his hobby and he is forever switching things from one computer to another to get the best combinations for whatever. This means that at any given time, even though we have two TVs, the computers that are running them are laying on the floor with their guts strewn an arm’s reach in any direction.
Nope, Chris, there’s no TV when he’s in fix-it mode in our house! 😐
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I don’t get NASCAR any more than I get football!
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