Watching Television With The Elderly

I was very excited to graduate from college. It’s a momentous occasion that leads to some major adjustments, mostly positive. Surprisingly the biggest challenge is not finding a place to hang my diploma, but rather adjusting to life living with my parents. My life is taking a turn for the difficult as I’ve decided to attend law school in the fall. Thinking with my financial brain I accepted my parent’s invitation to move home for the summer; an invitation guaranteed to save me money, worry and sure to give me a few good meals every single day.

I did not, however, anticipate the challenge of adjusting to my parents’ time table. As my parents arrive to their mid sixties they have started to eat early in order to catch their favorite television shows. It takes some adjusting to body and schedule to force feed yourself a steak at four in the afternoon. I’ve tried not eating lunch, but that just upsets my whole day. To compensate I’ve tried to sleep in til eleven or so, but that makes it hard to do anything at all but eat a steak at four.

The real motivation for such a rough schedule is that Adam-12, a sixties version of the numerous police shows we have today, comes on at 5. After a thrilling half hour of police delivered moral anecdotes ("And that's why you don't play around with matches!) we settle in to watch The Antiques Roadshow. Any rest home resident can tell you that this country has some serious buried treasure in the basements under the houses of your very neighborhood, and they know it for sure because of The Antiques Roadshow. After assessing the nation’s antiques we shift our position in the lay-z-boy to watch a toss up of either Bonanza, Dragnet, or Frasier depending on the mood of the household.

You would think that with all this dedication to the TV schedule they wouldn’t have time for reading or cross-stitching, but no! As they sit side by side in their matching blue lay-z-boy recliners my dad will have his Louis L’Amour western novel in his hands whilst my mom maintains her crossword puzzle close by. When the commercials come up they mute the sound and take to their literature.

I don’t mind muting the commercials because when my parents hear what the ads say in conjunction with what they show it raises too many questions.

“What are the people dressed in pink?”

“Those are his tastebuds.”

“What?”

“They’re supposed to be tastebuds.”

“What about the Talmud?”

“Nothing. These people wear pink when they talk about Scripture.”

“What?”

A real tragedy occurred this week when they replaced Adam-12 with an underappreciated ‘70s cooking show. After my dad finished his fit of disgust he sought comfort in the old black and white show, Perry Mason. This show offers him a happy second option. With no commercials and a predictable plot structure he feels right at home.

My mom has recently discovered the gruesomely alluring Bones with its strong female characters and variety of mysteries solved by the local forensic anthropologist and her dozen or so interns. I’ll be sitting down to enjoy a nice cup of Jell-o chocolate puddings when half-rotten corpses flash across the scene where people in trendy clothes discuss the various ways that the victim may have been bludgeoned to death and then eaten by rabid bunnies. Part of me is proud that they can not only turn on the television and the digital cable box but manage the six hundred channels to find their various shows.

My description is of course hyberolized, but none the less practically accurate. My father, who was a judge for twenty-five years and a bit of a legal genius, has managed remarkably well with technology that leaves me stunned and I’m forty years younger. Advancements in technology simply register lower on his enthusiasm radar.

My mother on the other hand can tell you within thirty seconds what the name and main stars are in any black and white film. Her memory for stories is incredible, and her movie recommendations are second to none. She can narrate for you the change in Hollywood production procedure and how it affected the qualities of the movies produced. She can also finish a crossword puzzle faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.

Returning to my childhood home has opened my eyes to the value of my parents love for narrative. It’s a small wonder that I felt most at home among other English majors at college, and that my time as a legal intern is mostly spent sharing the crazy stories that come from the courtroom. I’m sure that someday in the distant future I’ll sit in my lay-z-boy and verbally curse when they replace Bones with an underappreciated cooking show, oblivious to the fact that I now carry a crossword puzzle in one hand and a Louis L’Amour book in the other as I mute the dagnab commercials.