I love television with all my heart, I also hate it with a passion. I have many reasons for my emotional dyslexic connection to television. I love the feeling I get when Thursday rolls around and the Apprentice is on NBC. Who will be eliminated tonight? What will their task be? I love Home and Garden Television. They do home renovations in two days time, show us how to plan and carry out a fabulous dinner party in an evening, and demonstrate how to create fabulous decorations for any holiday season. DIY or Do It Yourself television is equally inspiring, though neither are actually inspiring enough for me to have attempted any of the projects I learned about, but that is beside the point.

When I would talk about different shows, my friend would get a confused look on his face and say, “I’m not familiar with that show, if it’s not on PBS then I wouldn’t have seen it.” That is the defining statement of a PBS snob, he admits it. Different people could fill in the ‘PBS’ designation with the ‘History Channel’ or the ‘Discovery Channel’. At that point I knew it was futile to even attempt to convey how funny the show was that I watched, it would have been lost on him. There is a sense of superiority when people say, “Oh, I don’t watch television.” Like we immediately picture them reading War and Peace instead of watching the finale of The Bachelor. I think of them as alcoholics that don’t allow themselves to watch any television because they would soon find themselves sitting among stacks of pizza boxes and bags of trash, watching Stella plan her big day on “Whose Wedding is it Anyway?” It’s on HGTV if you are interested.

Last year we signed up with Dish Network and now get about four hundred channels. Part of the package includes a PVR, or personal video recorder. We can record up to 60 hours of programming and watch a recorded show while another is recording. My goal is to avoid commercials as they waste valuable time.

Several months ago, actually it was four days before the presidential election, our television started acting funny with squiggly lines every so often. Then the picture totally went and we could only get audio on a couple channels. Dish Network came out to try to fix the problem only to determine it was our television that was on the blink, they said it was not a problem with their service. The television we had was given to us by my sister. She had gotten it from my mom about nine years before and mom had had it about ten years before that. One thing about my family, instead of hand me down clothes we have hand me down electronics. My mom has my stereo I bought several years ago, it was from the era of big speakers, the kind you can stand next to and rest your elbow on while you hold a drink. I have never bought a television in my life since I have been on the receiving end of televisions for years. It’s like the spiritual concept that the universe will provide.

This is not evidence of the value we place on television even though it may look that way. If we truly valued television we would have each gone to the trouble to buy brand new sets with state of the art technology. We would not have held on to the ones we have until another shows up at the door, as I was always confident that one would.

So, it was four days until the election and our television went out. This was unthinkable to me. This was something I could not comprehend. It was the worst thing that could have happened, I thought. I had eagerly anticipated this election day. I anticipated it from the day the last election results were announced. To say I had been looking forward to it would be an understatement of epic proportion. I had four days to fret over the possibility of no television election coverage at home. I wasn’t in the mood to go to friends or a bar to watch the events unfold. These four days I realized how addicted I had become to television over the years.

When we moved into our condominium several years ago we suddenly had no television at all, well television but no reception, which is really like no television. I loved it. When I felt compelled to turn on CSPAN and share my thoughts with the congressmen debating the bill to expand unemployment coverage or reduce it, I had no outlet that encouraged my contribution to the discussion. One sided as my contribution actually was since I was the only one listening to me!

It truly is an enlightening experience to listen to the debate that goes on in Washington. I listened to men that were elected to speak for us, express their concern for the myriads of lazy people that simply sit around and get an unemployment check and don’t even to make the attempt to find legitimate work. Their concern came in the form of a proposal to cut the length of unemployment benefit payments. I am sure those people are out there that abuse the system, but I don’t think they are the majority. We could have mentioned the congressmen that fly on private jets to resorts for ‘conferences’, aka vacations, paid for by taxpayers or corporate interest that just may happen to have legislature pending. I think that is far more damaging than a laid off steelworker in Pennsylvania milking his unemployment that he paid into over the years.

I am a bit of a news junkie, I figure if you are going to be a junkie this would be the kind to be, although is can be depressing at times. I sometimes talk to people who have no information and don’t care to engage in the conversation of our government at work and I am fascinated by them, and at the same time confused. I used to wonder how can I be like them? I came to the conclusion that sadly, I can’t.

So I listened to the universe and I heard it say, “You will not have television on election day, have faith and trust, you may surprise yourself.” I didn’t want to listen to the universe, I didn’t think she knew how truly important this election was, she must not or she would have provided a television on my door step immediately.

The stress of the election, the anticipation, the expected celebration was more than I could take. Then I realized, my immediate knowledge of the returns are going to make no difference on election night. I contributed to the campaign, I voted, early, and I had confidence that an educated electorate could not be taken for a ride, twice, by the same man.

I streamed in a news program on my computer. In shock, I watched for about an hour. I logged off. At that moment, I trusted the universe. It was a message to me that I didn’t need to see the election, the message couldn’t have been more clear. I didn’t need to see what was going to happen that night. I should have just listened to her.

My next door neighbor and her new husband just moved out of the neighborhood into a larger house, with very little furniture. Her husband fixes things. I told her we had a television that was broken but they may be able to find out if it is salvageable. They took it home with them. I spoke to them the next day. They asked me if I wanted it back because they plugged it in an it worked perfectly, great picture and great sound. I told her to keep it and enjoy it. I told her to consider it a gift from the universe, I know I did.