P.S.

My father worked in sales. One year he did so well they offered him a corner office. He turned it down, not wanting to suffer the humiliation of losing the office to next year's sales star. We believe he was the first and only person to ever turn down such an honor at his company. I remembered this after I posted "Mine Enemy."

"Regrets Only" ended with foreboding as I contemplated being the butt of every joke at Carl's Superbowl party. Judging by the recent traffic on his internet RSVP page, however, his TV writer friends have grown tired of my situation and have moved on to other topics for humor, none of which make any sense to me, all of them derived from deep within their hermetically-sealed bubble world. I'm now confident this year's party will be just like all the others, my attempts to penetrate their clubby huddle deftly parried by their inside jokes, shibboleths setting them apart from us workaday proles. And I'm reminded once again that to be a TV writer is to achieve the amazing physical feat of being the center of the universe while simultaneously being above it all. How anyone writes anything from that position is beyond me. And yes, in case you're wondering, I remain an envious, resentful and bitter man.

I'm beginning to wonder whether my filtered life is warping my kids. Our kids do watch TV, but we sharply limit their intake to a few hours of pre-recorded programming each week. So last week we were at a boisterous kid-filled dinner party and, as the escalating youthful exuberance threatened to swamp us adults, the hosts suggested pacifying the kids with some televised viewing pleasure. Our kids naturally jumped at the chance to sample the forbidden fruit (a side effect of their restricted diet) and we, reluctant to resist the pressure of our peers, allowed our kids to watch. Well, after ten minutes we heard a familiar howl coming from the TV room. We ran in to find our four year old bawling inconsolably. Unable to derive an explanation from his blubbering, we asked his sister what happened. "When the commercial came on, he thought the show was over," she explained. Then it hit us: he'd never seen a TV commercial before. He thought it was a new show.

Comments

A remedy for children's yearning for TV comes adapted from the pages of Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' - "If TV be what kids want, turn it on: give them excess of it so that the appetite my surfeit, sicken, and so die."

That was me, your old pal Stephenesque, writing that nonsense about TV and Shakespeare. Sorry, I seem to have an internet malfunction and cannot enter my personal details.

[gatsby]

wow.
your kid's never seen a commercial?
i suppose yours isn't the only one.
what are you going to do when drugs hit the scene?
don't get me wrong, i can't imagine raising a kid in todays world of distraction, i know nothing, and claim no expertise.
but, don't kids often end up seeking out those parental taboos that were forbidden to them? they all inevitably rebel don't they?
what if your kid becomes a commercial junkie?
and, regarding your father's decision...
woody allen never went to the academy awards because he felt that if he acknowledged their decision when he won, he'd have to acknowledge it when he lost.

[Desiderius Erasmus]

Laudo.

Against the spirit of the age, I suppose, I approve of your restricting your kids' TV watching, and smiled at the story. I wouldn't worry about their going insanely rebellious at some point. If sneaking views of TV at their friends' houses is rebellion to them, they'll never need to wade out into the depths of piercings, tattoos, and drugs for their "Ha! Dad would hate this!" moments. A half-hour or so of the Home Shopping Network ("Sweet! It's ALL commercials!"), and they'll feel like James Dean: "What are you rebelling against?" "Whaddya got? Cable? Satellite?"

Pax vobiscum.

ER

[DarkoV]

In trying to understand the part with the whole and the dip in the curve with recent entries, the following conclusion has been (humbly) drawn.
1) Thine Enemy is in cahoots with dispensation of Voodoo curses.
2) Why Voodoo? It's not simply the office you now hold. It's the reasonable deduction drawn that you are a heriditary griot. Your superiors sensed it; that's why you have the new office. Thine enemy sensed it; that's why you are (temporarily) suffering some calamities.

Accept it. As a herditary griot, you tell the stories that teach people to live productively and chohesively in society. You have been designated by the collective blogosphere to be the depository of the collective knowledge. You are spending your life making yourself aware of it and you are developing the necessary skills needed to share it effectively with others.

..and as Napoleon Dynamite says, "Girls like guys with skills."

[Michelle]

This is good, that your son has never seen a commerical before. Unfortunately, commericals now consist of ads for movies like "The Grudge," which give adults nightmares. They are on as early as 6:00 too. I am going to complain to the network, and then possibly disconnect the cable altogether. (I do have a weakness for the weather channel, though, living here in Texas...)