Televisions

Is it just me, or are TVs taking over the universe? They're popping up in gas stations, waiting rooms, supermarkets, banks, beauty salons, HOTEL BATHROOMS. I myself don't need a bathroom TV because I keep one in my underwear.

"For those of you who owned a Walkman and were at least mildly aware of the Watchman, Sony brings you ... The Crotchman."

The locker room at 24-Hour Fitness plays two TVs at the same time, which is kind of like being raped in the ears. Last week it was Fox versus ETV...

"Oprah lost 16 pounds to Al Qeada, who destroyed the Grammy chances of our nation's leaders in their incestuous love triangle. Call now!"

One night I got trapped with "The Biggest Loser," a reality show named after the people who watch it. The important thing is that we are never, for one second, without a talking head.

One day you'll go to leave a room and the TV will stand up tall like Julius Caesar and say, "Don't you give your back to ME!"

At Friday's, I saw a husband and wife watching TV over one another's heads. Makes you wonder how they got together in the first place.

"Well, I stretched my neck to see American Idol; she thought I was looking at her; and uh, the rest is history."

My cousin placed his baby's crib beside the TV because the baby found it comforting. We all look forward to junior's first word: "Toyotathon!"

We can't even sit down to Thanksgiving without a football game in the background. FYI, remote control goes inside the soup spoon.

Even when you mute the TV, it types out a transcript like a tyrant refusing to be gagged. "Don't ... you give ... your back ... to ME."

On the bright side, people are reading again. So it goes.

Albertson's supermarket plays tabloid TV above the magazine rack, and I, for one, am embarrassed to know what Jennifer thinks of Angelina. High school never ends.

And commercials. Sigh. They say TV is free, but we pay for it every time we hum a jingle. Somewhere in the distance, the Dalai Lama is in the lotus position trying to not think about what he'd do for a Klondike bar.

In concert, John Mellencamp began the song "Cherry Bomb" by saying, "I hope this one's good enough to someday be on a Pop Tarts commercial."

And let me tell you, it takes a big man to admit that he paid to see John Cougar Mellencamp.

Have you ever walked in on children who've stayed up all night watching TV? Their eyes gloss over with that soulless, homogenized look of certain congressmen. Finally they pass out, remote control in hand, while their clicker finger amazingly keeps changing channels.

At least they're not watching daytime TV, pork rinds for the brain.

"Yes, yer honor, he did gone slap me in fronta his ho' girlfriend."

On General Hospital, I saw a doctor being played by someone like Keanu Reeves, only stoned-er.

"Don't make me compromise the ethicality of this hospital, dude."

That's why we call them soap operas: Because afterward you need to shower. And if you ever find yourself bleeding to death in the ER, it's because your doctor is groping a candy striper with whose sister he is unwittingly having a baby.

I turn off the gym's locker room TVs every time I go and feel sorry for the guy who ever tries to stop me, because that will be a long, emotional conversation. I fantasize about smashing the TV, but then I remember Gandhi and Martin Luther King and the cost of bail.

When I can't reach the TVs, I dress as quickly as possible to minimize the damage:

"Local militia extend money-back guarantees to cheating housewives for their overtime victory in prescription coverage. Call now!"

Then I go home and shower for a long, long time.