The great clicker control

By Jack Elliott
Contributor

Technology has been a boon to us in many ways, but it is a double edged sword. Those boons have been accepted at a price. Stress.
That computer is great until it crashes and eats all your photos. And plastic, so convenient until it wipes you out financially. Fast food, tasty and cheap until you get diabetes and have a coronary.
But nothing I contend is quite as stressful as the clicker- the TV remote. Before the advent of the clicker it was either you or the spouse that hoisted your body off the couch to change channels- so you didn’t bother. And hey, there were only three channels anyways.
Now with hundreds of channels and still nothing worth watching you can surf for hours searching for a tidbit.
And nothing is quite as irksome as having someone monopolizing the clicker, surfing at a speed that doesn’t allow you to read the listings or so slowly it takes forever to get through them.
And woe betides the party who might criticize the operation of the party of the second part. It could result in a frenzy of surfing lasting until the program you wanted to watch is pretty much over. Or in a fit of anger a well directed clicker missile. Those suckers can hurt.
The solution you say is two TVs in separate rooms with separate clickers. But this will backfire as well with comments like, “How come you don’t watch tv with me anymore?”Don’t you still love me?”
Should you get bored with the fare offered and leave the room in favour of a snack or the paper, you can bet your partner will turn off the tube and go take a bath. Should you then go back in and turn the TV on to another channel, within five minutes your partner will return in her jammies, wrapped in a blanket and complain, “Hey, I was watching that other program!”
So the only solution is to watch the boob tube by yourself. With practice and a good clicker you can watch two and three shows at the same time. My friend (Florida) Len can even manage four. He is so dedicated, when his wife Kay went to investigate the snoring sound coming from the den she looked in the find him fast asleep while he continued to press the clicker at a furious rate. A real professional.
But such habits if they don’t lead to divorce can lead to very cutting remarks. As Hubby repeatedly flicked between a fishing show and the new blue skin channel that was having a free preview weekend, Sweetie walked through the room and commented. “Why don’t you just leave the skin channel on because you already know how to fish?”