"I Don't Have a TV..."

I participated in a couple of comment threads the other day where the subject du jour was Flo… that perky lil spokeswoman for Progressive Insurance. And here she is… in the unlikely event you don't know who I'm talking about:

It should be obvious why I picked this particular commercial… as in, "what's not to like about a woman who rides a 900cc vee-twin?"… providing it's a Duck and not one of those Milwaukee Vibrators, of course. But we digress almost before we've begun.

It came to pass that not a few people in the second linked thread advised the rest of us that they didn't have a TV. At least one commenter went beyond advisement and bordered on flaunting the fact… as in "isn't it nice not to have a TV?" This attitude amazes me. But it's not like I haven't been there…

There was an extended period of time in my (adult*) way-back when I, too, had no teevee… like from 1974 until late 1980, or well over six years. It began when The First Mrs. Pennington and I split the blanket and all our worldly goods… including the teevee but NOT my stereo and record albums… went south to California while I remained in Oregon. I was relatively young at the time (not yet into my thirties, but close) and my social life was such that I really didn't need a television. So I didn't replace it.

Fast forward to my next assignment… which was in Tokyo… and the social life picked up a bit while the need for a teevee decreased in an exponential manner, what with me understanding only about 26 useful words and phrases in Nihongo. And then it was on to North Dakota, where we got all of ONE teevee station during my one year, three day, and eight hour sojourn up on the border of NoDak, Montana, and Canuckistan. (Full disclosure: There was no cable in the town of 250 souls in which I dwelled and my housemate of six months had a very small portable black and white teevee… which I don't recall watching. Ever.) It went on like that when The Second Mrs. Pennington and I married and moved out to Oregon, where we survived without a teevee for about two years.

All that changed when we were transferred to Ol' Blighty, whereupon shortly after our arrival I suggested that the Beeb's quality was far superior to American television and wouldn't it be a wonderful window on the culture, besides? Much discussion and debate followed, and much was apparently at stake… in that it seemed to pain TSMP to give up the cachet that came with NOT having a teevee. But I prevailed after about a week of batting it back and forth and we made the journey from High Wycombe to RAF Upper Heyford and returned with a rather spiffy Sony Trinitron SECAM/PAL/NTSC-capable teevee that would receive broadcast signals in nearly every corner of the Free World. We secured our telly license from the local Post Office and we were in bid'niz.

And never really looked back.

Well, that was us. TSMP has since dispensed with HER teevee and hasn't owned one for a few years now. She gave up television For The Children, or rather for one child specifically: SN3. The way I heard it he was heavily addicted to the box and much too whiny with a teevee in the house. So the teevee went and he stayed, with much improved behavior. So I'm told.

So… there you have my story about having no television and you may feel free to read between the lines, Gentle Reader. If you choose to infer there was some sort of snobbish reason for not owning a box I'd disagree with you as far as the early years went. But we'd come closer to agreement beginning sometime around 1976 or so. "Not owning a TV" did become a cultural statement after a bit.

And so we come full-circle. I'm of the opinion those of us who choose not to own a TV do so largely because it's cool. I'll grant you that the times they are indeed a changin', and there's precious little of value on TV that cannot be had on the 'net. But I've also found that watching streaming TV on my computer (think: C-SPAN) is not nearly as pleasant as it is on the Big Screen. And then there's sports… and I AM male. I'd be lost in the Fall without the Saturday Football Orgies and I'd rend my garments and rub ashes into my skin were I deprived of the hockey playoffs. The Weather Channel. The aforementioned C-SPAN. The History Channel. All sorts of stuff on PBS… even including the moonbat shit.

There ARE great good things on The Idiot Box, and every single one of those boxes has an on/off switch as well as a remote control. What you watch and when you watch it is entirely in your hands, literally. One of the things you're telling me when you say "I don't have a TV" is you lack a good amount of self-control, in addition to being susceptible to certain cultural memes. Those aren't Good Things, Gentle Reader, but I'm open to being persuaded if you have other arguments.

Just sayin'.

* I also spent five years without a teevee as a child in the '50s, when my father was stationed overseas in the UK, France, and Turkey between 1953-1958. I have NO idea why my parents didn't "do" teevee back then... except for when we were in Turkey, where it was largely non-existent at the time. A TV was one of the first things they bought when we returned to the US, however.