For Christmas, I bought myself a television for the kitchen. Not a big plasma screen – just a little 13-inch set that fits on the counter right next to the toaster. It’s perfect for watching Oprah or Rachael Ray while I boil Annie’s shells and empty the dishwasher. I know, I know – a television in the kitchen will lead to watching television during dinner, which will lead to the destruction of our family life as we know it. That’s why I’ve made some rules.
“Let’s get this clear,” I told my son Lewis and my daughter Perry as I screwed in the cable connection.
“This is my television. You have the TV in the playroom where you can watch your shows or play Xbox.
But this one is for me – and besides, it only gets the Food Network.”
Lewis looked skeptical. “Yeah, right,” he said. “When we were little, you told us that the only station we got was PBS.”
My kids are getting too darn smart. I was hoping that the tactics I used when they were preschoolers would still work now that they are teenagers. They don’t.
“Can’t we ever watch this TV?” my daughter whined.
“Sure,” I said. “But you have to ask me before you turn it on and I will probably say no.” With a flourish, I draped a dishrag over the screen so that the television would be camouflaged with kitchen décor and so that everyone (and by everyone, I mean my kids) would forget that the TV even existed.
It didn’t work. The kids continued to lurk around the dishrag, touching the fringed edge and fingering the buttons on the remote control.
“What if Lew is playing Wii with his stupid friends in the playroom and Project Runway is on – then can I use this TV?” asked Perry.
“No,” I said. “This is my TV. You and Lew will have to work out how to share the other one. You’ve managed so far.”
“What if the other TV breaks or the remote runs out of batteries,” Lew posed. “Then can I watch this one?”
“No,” I said.
“What if the playroom gets flooded and if we turned on the TV there we would get electrocuted …” Lew pushed. “Then could we watch this one?”
“No. You’d be too busy bailing to watch television.”
“Even if it’s a show like Cash Cab?” Lew prodded. “Something really eduuuuucaaa tional?”
“No,” I said. “And that’s my final answer.”
I thought I had been pretty clear in laying down the laws of the new television. But the very next morning, Lewis was sitting at the kitchen table dreamily spooning Cocoa Puffs into his mouth and basking in the glow of MSNBC.
“My history teacher says that we have to watch the news,” he explained. “Otherwise we flunk.”
“Watch it in the playroom,” I said.
“Mom, you said that you don’t want me to eat downstairs in the TV room,” Lewis noted. “And now you don’t want me to watch TV in the eating room. What’s a guy supposed to do?”
“Okay, okay, just this once,” I relented with the realization that nothing – even television – is ever black and white.
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