Around… what was it? 4 in the morning?... he awoke. The TV in the bedroom was still on—something that happened when his wife stayed up later than him, as she fell asleep with it offering its cool, glowing blanket of flickering light and muffled voices.
The remote control was over on her night stand, so he let it play.
After a while, when it became clear that his conscious mind had taken control and he wasn't falling back to sleep, he picked his glasses from the night stand nearest him and put them on. Rolling on to his back, he propped up his head with a second pillow and watched some Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns on Nick at Nite (being what was showing on the channel on which his wife had left it set). One was a "message" episode, where Will toys with taking drugs and it leads to his cousin inadvertently taking them and ending up in the hospital. Very subtle.
At 5 a.m. the programming changed Home Improvement. He put up with the first few minutes, as it involved Tim going to a Red Wings game, but then he was forced to get up and retrieve the remote from the other side of the bed.
No matter how tired he was, he had limits for what he could tolerate.
TV: the great motivator.
ReplyDeleteEver leave it on in the background like a radio while trying to do stuff on your computer? Even the audio half of a stupid program can motivate you to turn off the damn set.
Ray
I have a laptop in large part because I have the TV on while doing stuff with the computer. An atrocious habit I developed while living alone: TV as roommate.
ReplyDeleteWhen I do turn off the TV I get an undeserved sense of accomplishment, regardless of whether I actually do anything.