The News Blues
I don’t watch the news very much anymore. At least I try to avoid it. My husband, on the other hand, is obsessed with it. He even watches it while he’s sleeping. If I walk into the room while he’s taking a nap and find the news blaring away, I tip-toe over to the remote, which is still being held in his vice-like grip, gently pry it away from my husband and turn it off, which wakes him up immediately, of course. “Why don’t you leave the TV off when you’re trying to nap?” I ask him. “Because,” he responds, “I’m still half-listening.” My multi-talented guy! But, as he drifts off again, I switch it from his beloved FOX, to my far-preferred CNN. Yes, he’s one of “those”, and I’m one of “them”. And, yet, somehow, we’ve managed to stay married for over thirty years now. Amazing!
No, I try to stay away from the news. It gives me the blues. Besides, I figure I’ll find out if we’re about to be hit with missiles while having lunch with a friend. And I’ll find out if some horrible pandemic is about to eat us all up like Pac-Man while browsing through one of the tabloids in the check-out lane at the grocery store. Heck, I might even get the inside scoop, as I thumb through the pages, that George W. Bush is a Reptilian from some far off galaxy, or that Princess Kate is Barbara Streisand’s love child. One never knows.
No matter what channel I might tune into that offers news as one of its services – if not it’s only service – then I’m bound to see some crawler at the bottom of the screen listing all of the day’s breaking news and horrific events while some anchor is dramatically telling us about the biggest one of them all. It’s enough to make those far-sighted doom’s day preppers take a serious inventory on how long their ammunition will hold out and how much canned Spam they have. Personally speaking, I’d rather have an old movie on the tube, or one of the food channels. Yes, ignorance is bliss, but it also allows me to get a good night’s sleep, too.
I think I’ll just spend my time enjoying it rather than worrying about how much of it I have left. It does no good. It’s not like I can run outside and catch incoming missiles before they hit the ground. And I’m sure that if UFOs land on the White House lawn, it’s not going to be me they demand to talk to, so I need not know. I’m also quite sure that if we’re having a cataclysmic pole shift, moving all of my furniture to one side of the house and jumping up and down as hard as I can is not going to throw the Earth back into balance again. No, there’s not much I can do about that. But, I can continue to write, and, hopefully, bring some enjoyment to some folks as I distract them from the news for awhile. And I can spend time with my family and friends, doing new things to make new memories which I’d like to think will be talked about for some decades to come. I’ll also enjoy a summer rain storm; the smell of a new puppy; chocolate ice cream; a good steak; the first signs of fall; the first snow; antiquing; cooking Thanksgiving dinner; scary TV shows; Yoga; and the day’s first cup of coffee. If the missiles come streaming down, then they come streaming down. I just ask that they wait until I’ve finished watching the Cubs’ game. All things considered, I think one of the greatest inventions mankind has ever made was the OFF button on the TV’s remote. ‘Night Anderson.