Take Me Away, Captain Sharpe
My mother calls them heart-throbs. With me, it’s more like an asthma attack, and I don’t have asthma. I was barely aware of my current interest until I came across Clarissa, a BBC production described as the first Dangerous Liaisons. I checked it out.
That DVD really should come with a warning: “May result in these side affects -pupils fixed on nearest LCD screen, uncontrollable shushing of any sound outside of the television. Commonly known was Hopelessly Glued to the TV Disorder. Before viewing this DVD, give your children emergency contact numbers and the phone.”
Would I ever want to meet my current heartthrob? You bet. But I procrastinate about meeting the new neighbors. They’ve been new for about five years now. It’s a lot of work to meet the new neighbors. First you have to get the butter to room temperature so it’s soft enough to work with, then you have to dash into town to buy some more chocolate chips because the family eats them right out of the bag so you’re always short of 2 cups worth, then you have to stand over the oven timing the cookies because the timer’s broken.
Of course, if the actor/heartthrob turned out to be my new neighbor, not only would I have to give in and buy a new timer for the kitchen, but I’d have to make certain I didn’t make a fool of myself in front of him, too. (1) Lock myself in the boys’ bathroom with the CD player blaring cat yowls, (2) Assume the lotus position with nose over the toilet (boys miss, guaranteed, so it stinks, guaranteed). (3) Chant in dull monastic tone “he is nothing but a bad-smelling kicker of cute little kitties so you will not be a giddy gusher. Oummm.” Repeat again. Some more. OK, one more time. (4) Emerge singing “Mine eyes have seen the glory!” Bellow to husband, “Hide the binoculars!” (5) Scrub the boys’ toilet before the stench starts to pee on its own. (6) Look for the binoculars.
Hopelessly Glued to the Binoculars Disorder is much more serious than Hopelessly Glued to the TV Disorder. It could take me years to whip up enough cookies and self-control to be able to meet Mr. Inhaler Required without an oxygen tank. Thanks to an excellent husband who hides binoculars extremely well (yes, I checked that little box that houses the refrigerator’s cooling fan, thank you), I never would get that desperately sick.
Give me a month or two. Then I’ll be fine. All poise and posture. Why? Because I am fickle. Given familiarity, movie after movie, my heart simply ceases to respond. “Pound, pound” turns into a flippy, floppy, dull thing. That’s when I move on to Romance God Number … OK, I’ve lost count…but the point is the new romance god wouldn’t be the relatively new neighbor, who I really should welcome to the neighborhood, but I just don’t have the time right now. Really.
Day to day life is compartmentalized. Husband, work, being the soccer and basketball mom, working out to maintain my college-girl figure (if only gravity would get so wrinkled in space and time that my breasts would actually start to float) feeding the pets, shopping for groceries, washing everyone’s clothes, vacuuming dog hairs, reminding children to do their homework, brush their teeth, and say their prayers, kissing everyone goodnight, getting up too early, staying up too late, sneaking in a good read, watching TV (the last for more hours than my short life can really afford if I’d only admit it). All have a time in the day. Their own compartment. Including my latest heartthrob. He’s the mental vacation I take when my husband says I don’t do enough.
Has this little bad habit of mine taught me to switch off things? Things I shouldn’t? I’m pretty good at paying attention to the kids, loving my Status Quo, and putting everything I have into my work, but the rest of the world could be circling another sun for all I know. When I don’t have the time to care, I don’t.
When Katrina hit New Orleans, I e-mailed my old church in Louisiana to ask what could I do. Shampoos, toothpaste, toothbrushes were needed. 30,000 New Orleans residents had descended on this small city overnight. The shelters were packed. E-mail made it so easy. One e-mail to a co-worker turned into a mass e-mail to all my co-workers which spread to another state, and within a week two Mack trucks were parked in front of my old church loaded with toothpaste.
Yes, I helped a little. A lot of us did. For a couple of weeks. Now New Orleans is put away in its compartment. Tragic news tears me up, and images of sexy actors give me a thrill. At first. Then I disconnect at will. And I don’t think I’m that unusual.
Maybe our family should get rid of our TV so we’d live more. But the kids want it. My husband wants it. I want it. We want our moods manipulated by that television. We are a screen obsessed society willing to spend billions of dollars and a nearly a third of our lifetimes sitting in front of screens (what’s more, we don’t seem to notice, much less mind), while New Orleans remains half flattened. I find I can’t escape. TVs are in waiting rooms, bolted to walls of public places where I queue up. They are the new opium for the masses. Put us in front of a TV and -
“Next!”
“Shhhh! This is the good part!”
But isn’t it the people in front of the TV screens who should get our attention? All right, perhaps I can’t save the world, but if we turn off the TV, it would be a step. Think how many more hours life would have! Don’t I say to my children, “one hour spent doing this is one hour spent not doing ten other things that matter? Tell you what, I’ll do it. Just as soon as I finish these 30 hours of Sharpe first. Plus, what needs to be done in the world is so overwhelming, I need the escape.
“Mom? I just remembered. I have soccer practice in 10 minutes.”
Pity Richard Sharpe is fictional.
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Photo credit: http://sachem.suffolk.lib.ny.us/advisor/pix1/sharpe1.jpg
