How To Even…Find Something To Watch On TV

By Michael Gushue & CL Bledsoe

When we were kids, there were maybe three channels on TV. We’d just gotten a new color model, and we had to get up off the couch to change the channel because remotes hadn’t been retconned from alien technology yet. There was a little plastic dial to turn that went up to 12, and, a couple weeks after we got it, it popped off and got lost under the couch or eaten by the dog who was then lost under the couch. (Our couch was on a point where two leylines had met but couldn’t remember each others’ names so just said, “Hey, you,” and nodded a lot.) This left a little stick that the dial had been on, which we then had to turn with a pair of pliers, dodging dodo birds and low-flying pterodactyls. We kept the pliers on top of the TV, which was in a huge wooden box but still only had a 27-inch screen.

One channel came in pretty good. A couple more were okay but a little jumpy. If it was cloudy, we might get a few more. If there was a big storm, there was no telling what we’d get. Maybe aliens or people from other, superior dimensions where novelty blogs are considered the highest form of art. Of course, a squirrel might knock out the power, and we’d be left to eat each other in the gloom.

The point is, we didn’t have a lot of options, back then. We’d watch what was on. Sometimes, on a holiday or when…