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Men, move along. It's another Ladies' Night at the Seeing Red Saloon, standing room only, because I will be discussing remote controls and men.
Are all males control freaks? Why do they feel powerless without a remote control apparatus in their hands? My sister says it's a genetic defect, caused by males having an extra chromosome or lacking one. I forget which, but I'm betting on the lacking. Still, with the world going to hell in a handcart, I think women should be examining this peculiar phenomenon a bit more closely.
For instance, I recently watched an adult male and a pre-adolescent male fighting over the power of controlling television. One male wanted to watch used cars for sale, the other wanted to watch used homes for sale, and I wanted to confiscate the remote and allow them to ransom it at noon. At which point, I might decide to wake up and tell the boys to turn the TV off or a cooking show on PBS would be coming on. (It is ironic but true that I love watching cooking shows, yet hate to cook.) The remote controller in my life later explained that this undignified tussle with his favorite young man on the planet was because the remote had only recently come into his life and he hadn't yet learned all of its functions. Wherein lies a tale, ladies.
A man I'm acquainted with spilled beer on his access to the universe about a year ago and decided to give it a bath. I was not consulted on whether this was a good idea until it was clear to Mr. Fastidious that the remote refused to work after its dunk in the Palmolive. We took it apart, dried it out and, praise the Sweet Lord, it worked. For a while. I won't go into its death throes, because it was an ugly business.
Personally, I didn't care if we had a remote to allow my darlin' to go through 16 channels in 30 seconds, and then repeat the process in reverse, just in case he had missed something. Frankly, I would have been content to be his remote and get up from my chair to lower the sound, increase the sound or change the channel. This would ensure that little whirl through the dial was avoided.
Unfortunately, soon after we lost the remote, our cable company reconfigured all their signals so that, without a remote control, we could not get three-fourths of the cable channels, and since this included CBC, I went into investigative mode. And discovered Lissa at our cable company, who guided me through using our VCR to program our ancient television, so Stone-Age that universal remotes don't work with it. Thus, Mr. Man could use the VCR remote to patrol the channels, and I got to see "Coronation Street."
Too soon, the VCR, nearly as old as the television, died along with a video of a local poetry reading. We were back to about six stations. I called Lissa again and she said my options were to buy a new VCR or a cable-ready television. We ended up with the new television, but not before a frustrating experience trying to hook up a new VCR so that it recognized the cable signals. (Lissa was off that day.)
The new television's picture is not only better, the remote control is state-of-the-art. Or so I'm told. Because now I'm back to seeing pieces of shows, in between the beginnings of commercials and the ends of them. I watch movies I've already seen in the hope of finding out who murdered whom, because the remote was on patrol during key sequences. I have no idea whether new sitcoms might be funny, because my remote controller believes if they don't amuse in the first two minutes, they aren't worth our time. Then he can start his roll through the channels. This is a man who prefers to watch the NASA channel when it is not over land. I believe he finds the oceans soothing.
He says I'm a shallow person because I find sitcoms amusing. OK. He says I'm very self-involved because I complain about his mode of television viewing. OK. He also says that men are the natural masters of the universe, thus the remote is their right. He didn't put it exactly in those terms, but I got his drift. No OK.
Just because I don't feel the need to test out how fast you can race through 16 channels does not make me of a lower species of human. Ladies, are we all seeing red yet?
We have never had a female U.S. president, but look at the lame bunch of males we've had this century. Natural rulers, my ass. Give a woman a chance. And how about those popes? Catholics don't even allow women to become priests, for pity's sake, and we're supposed to forgive the church for ignoring pederast clergy? Maybe if we let priests marry, they might behave a bit better and I wouldn't feel that clinging to the church of my ancestors is subsidizing child abuse. Better yet, ordain a few women.
Remote controls are a symbol of our malaise. You want to change a channel, get off your duff and change it. You want to clean up a church hierarchy, put the offenders in jail. Then sue the Vatican for every penny we've given the church that was used to pay off the victims of perverted priests. You want honest politicians, vote. So many of us don't. Thus we'll get still another term of Gov. Way-Too-Tall, who is withholding the money to open the Aerospace Museum because His Largeness wants to dangle a carrot in front of the Western New York vote. A man who humiliates the Seneca Nation by not showing up for a deal-signing on the casino, getting that travesty of development off on the usual Niagara road, with both sides blaming each other for stupidity. Might as well hate each other right off the bat, I say. They will sooner or later.
I agree with the friend of a friend who believes we are about to go down in history as having the only casino that goes bankrupt. She is a very wise woman.
Oh dear, it's closing time and I have not even touched on my auxiliary topic: Why men feel their masculinity is threatened by admitting they are lost and asking for directions. Another time, girlfriends.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 27 2002 |