Freestyle Computer Raging
July 12, 2013
The Great Summer Wildflower Hike
August 9, 2013
This is an essay that I wrote earlier this summer and got sent to the usual literary journals, online magazines, etc., etc. with the usual rejections. Actually I hope the editors had half as much fun reading it as I did writing the piece. Everything seemed to flowed so easily on this one.
Word Count: 743
“TV That Talks Back At You”
Think about it. It’d be quite the eye opening experience to talk to your television and it responds back to you? Let’s say some inane infomercial comes on at 3:00 am, and in your late night stupor you decide to yell at the tube. Suddenly the TV set acknowledges your rants and answers back. A deep booming James Earl Jones type baritone says it will seriously take into consideration your opinions. Wow what a concept, interactive TV that actually works? This sounds like it could be as much fun as that time you found yourself trapped overnight in a Toys-R-Us. Basically it is too. The toy store incarceration adventure happened last week, but that’s another story.
You may be asking yourself, how is this possible? More appropriately, why is this possible? This is a question better left to technology philosophers and paranoid conspiracy theorists. Basically folks with lots of time on their hands and very little motivation to contemplate the ramifications of doing anything else. Since that’s the case, let’s attempt to answer the first question instead.
Your television doesn’t look any different than other cathode ray-tube viewing devices. In fact, it’s quite typical. One of those new fangled flat screen models with crystal clear, holographic imagery and surround sound speakers strategically placed in each corner of the room.
You paid a design consultant lots of Dead Presidents to pinpoint the proper location to position those sound emitting devices too. Makes you wonder, is that part of the reason the television talked back when you yelled at it?
Possibly, after all how do you know that interior designer you hired isn’t an operative? Accumulating information for some sort of covert organization right under the noses of most private citizens? You don’t, after all the guy did have a swarthy look to him and grandpa always said was a legitimate reason to be suspicious about these sorts of things. He also said it makes for a more cautious, and therefore more interesting journey through life. That’s also justifiable.
That 3:00 am infomercial incident wasn’t the first time the tube has talked back at you either. What about that situation last week in the middle of a win-or-contemplate-suicide game? Your favorite team sure managed to grasp defeat out of the ironclad jaws of victory with that one. They go into the 9th inning of the game with a 10-2 lead and looking happier than a Hollywood movie executive whose latest offering just hit the sixty million dollar profit plateau. Then the brain-dead manager of theirs chooses to use every pitcher in that bird-flu anemic bullpen of theirs. Turns a sure-fire thing into a nail biting, boredom inducing pitcher’s duel that lasts another four innings?
What sort of mind-numbing thoughts were going through the heads of those brain dead morons when they were building up a three run lead in the 13th, get two outs, and follow that by balancing right on the verge of victory with a 1-2 count on the batter? Promptly proceeded by losing the game in an epic collapse that makes Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo look like a loss in Checkers to his nephew? You damn right the TV talked back when you yelled at it. There would definitely be something seriously wrong with the situation if it didn’t.
How should you respond to this when it happens? Start up a running dialogue with the voice? Possibly, although it might respond back in a strange cryptic way when you ask it a question. What if it acts belligerent and obstinate when you ask it another question, how should you react? Hopefully it’ll be friendly so this might be a lot of fun. Maybe you can ask what the entity thinks about that latest job offer you got just yesterday. If you take it, at least you won’t have to ask the people at the convalescence home if they want fries and a drink with their order.
You’ll just ignore it. That course of action always seems to work pretty well for the federal government. They’re very efficient and we all know how neglecting stuff works for them.
Should you be worried about hearing voices from the television? Maybe, but probably not. Good thing that psychiatrist altered your medication. Now were you supposed to take three or four pills every six hours? Or was it once every hour? Maybe you should call him and find out what the proper prescription is?
