How Many Remotes Does It Take To Watch TV?

While I'm waiting for the laundry to finish spinning (and for this next huge snowstorm to strike) I thought I'd tell you something.

Currently, for Tom and I to watch tv, it takes using 5 tv remote controls.

Five. (Or is it 6?)

Now, I'm not even certain I can explain just why that is, but as of a month ago, he put together this set-up in our Cozy Room using a flat-screen computer monitor and a little tower thing beside it, then some kind of machine below those (a tuner?) and the dvd player beneath those and the vcr beneath that and I think there's another machine below that. I'm not sure. I am the most un-technically minded person you'll ever meet.

So, to avoid spending real money on a flat screen tv and cable or satellite (etc., etc.) we are now required to use 5 (6?) tv remotes just to watch a tv show. Or a movie on dvd or video. (Try keeping track of--and not losing--6 remote controls!)

Man, I need a college degree in computers--otherwise I may never be able to watch LOST again. Or 24. Or anything.

You should see me. After a month, I still don't get it. I still have no clue, really, what I'm doing. No, I just grab a remote and press buttons until something happens which looks right. And if nothing right or good happens, then I grab the next remote, then next one and the -- 

I just sort of feel my way through, like a ship out amongst a few icebergs.

The first morning Tom went to work and left the whole tv set-up on, I panicked. I told myself, "Oh no! I'll have to leave all those machines on all day long. I can't remember how to turn them off!"

Oh well. Like I told Tom the other night, if there's one good thing about this set-up where you can never just mindlessly push a few remote buttons, it's that it could very well keep our brains from atrophying. 

And at our age, that's a good thing.



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