Without any warning, and I think without himself even knowing it, Joel threw down the gauntlet and left me no choice but to pick it up.
He suggested, quite harmlessly, that the one object that would make me a happy man would be an apparatus which enabled myself, and no one else, to view the television. An apparatus resembling gigantic binoculars, attached to the TV screen on one end, and my face at the other, that effectively shut off access to the TV by anybody but me.
At first I thought to myself "Now there's a curious concept," but in a very short time the bigger picture made itself clear. What Joel was implying, by it's very nature. was odiuos and exactly opposed to all things that men of valor and cheer strive for.
Can anybody name for me a device more deadly to good fellowship and comraderie than a pair of private TV binoculars that enable yourself, and nobody else, to view the TV? Exclusivity and solopism would find a perfect marriage in such a device. I would find a tangible threat to the very foundation of mateship and good cheer.
Imagine going to your friends house, or favorite bar, and on every chair is a TV with the afformentioned binolcular apparatus. Soon nobody would remember what they had to say or even how to say it.
Joel, by implying that I desired such a device, hit a deep and personal chord because I really enjoy the company of others above and beyond the company of television. The challenge was there right before me, I had to prove with actions, not words, where I stodd on this issue.
I rushed to the TV and ripped it from it's comfortable perch atop the stereo
(continued).
No comments:
Post a Comment