Where Jimmy and I grew up, rural Central Texas, we had two TV channel choices, channel 6 and channel 10. We were glad to have two to pick from, we didn't know we were "deprived" in any way as children today would think. I grew up watching Phil Donahue (whom I secretly had a crush on) and the news during the week, and football and The Wide World of Disney on Sundays (at 6:00 after Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.)
Imagine our delight when we were in high school and channel 25 was added to our TV options. Channel 25 added a new dimension to our week as reruns of my mother's favorite show, Star Trek, were constantly on, much to my complete disappointment, a sci-fi fan I'm not. With only one "real" TV in our house, and that was in my parent's room, and then a 6 incher in the kitchen that my siblings and I would huddle around, we were very thankful.
Jump ahead twenty years and Jimmy and I have still been the only family in our upscale community with basic cable. Basic cable has way more channels than we were used to growing up, so this Clampet family has been living high on the hog. I watch the same three channels anyway, ABC, CBS, and NBC (oh, and Headline News), so I don't need any more options.
Well, Jimmy decided to change to satellite this week and I've been lost ever since the installation guy left. I sat all night the first night during my usual insomnia episode, staring blankly at the "Dish" animated box bouncing around my TV screen, unable to get the darn thing to show any channels. When Jimmy got up later that morning, he fixed it after laughing at me way too long. I went straight to ABC as usual, leaving the other 119 channels for someone else.
How can a person choose from 120 channels when you're used to three? I guess I'm just simple-minded. Oh, and to throw another wrench into my usually vanilla-tinged life, I now have two remotes at each television! Talk about complicated.
I miss the good old days (and Donahue.)
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