I Have the Power

Ah, the eternal struggle, man and woman vying for control of the remote. I’m a lucky woman because Sweetface doesn’t watch sports. But that still hasn’t cured any of our marital strife over the clicker.

Sometimes when we’re both watching TV, Sweetface decides to leave the room and turns it off. It bears the great philosophical question: “If a TV is on in a room and there’s no man to watch it, is it really on?” It’s like turning off the light on someone. His defense is usually, “It didn’t look like you were watching.” And my reply is, “I wasn’t, because what you had on stunk.”

Sweetface has a penchant for documentaries about machines and manufacturing. Documentaries about machines make me feel like a five-year-old in an insurance office. I’d really had enough on the day that Sweetface was watching a show about a boring machine. I told him if he really loved me he would let me pick what to watch once in a while. Apparently, he thought I being funny because he laughed.

Men need to be reminded that the remote is not an extension of their manhood, and sharing it isn’t the technological equivalent of castration. In any case I have a few mantras to help those of the masculine persuasion get along with those of the feminine persuasion:

“There are other people in the world besides me.”
“I am not the center of the universe.”
“Real men share the remote.”