The Black Box

The Black Box sits in my living room. Sometimes lights come on in the Black Box. A lot of the time when the lights are on, there is sound coming out of that Black Box. It is a loud sound that, truth be told, could be more pleasant.

More pleasant things are my kids’ laughter. More pleasant is the sound of Vivaldi or Mozart, Cradle of Filth or Hatebreed, Pendulum or The Prodigy, Celia Cruz or Norah Jones. More pleasant is the clicking of the charms on my dog’s collar or the humming sound of the kids’ fans when they go to sleep. More pleasant is the quiet clicks of my laptop’s keyboard.

The Black Box in my living room sometimes has people shooting guns at each other when my kids are watching. A lot of the time it just has imaginary people’s imaginary lives playing on it. Their dramas, their incredible stories to match my own and my husband’s, their banter – sometimes witty and sometimes mindless. Once in a while there’s something meaningful in the Black Box- something to connect us with our past and with what we might become in the future if we don’t watch it.

The Black Box steals my time. It steals my kids. It steals from me. I might watch 10 reruns of Bully Beatdown because watching bullies get the shit kicked out of them feels so much better to me than doing 2 loads of dishes myself. But the dishes are my family’s dishes. How can the Black Box be more important than that?

I do not understand anything other than selflessness, so I tolerate the Black Box in my living room. I might even forgive it. I’m not going to be the one to shut it down if I’m the only one out of four who views it as the enemy. I prefer not to be The One to Shut it Down. That’s not even the point. It’s just that in this existence in which we live, there’s so much more to do than watch the Black Box and its stories – its gunfights, its drama, its LIFE – that I can honestly say I would be so much better off without it. Actually quite perfectly happy without it. Even if it meant (which I know it does) pissing off some really awesome kids, and a great husband who wants to watch ONE episode of Top Gear a week. My darling, send me the links and I will rather buy you the “whoollle ppppphhhhhhokkinnn seeeehrieees” than let you waste your time on it regularly on a weekly basis. Can I get an Amen??? Aaaaaaa-phokken-men, please!!