Unplugged
Jeny Cassady
In June, I wrapped up my boyfriend and locked him in my basement storage unit. We’re not seeing each other anymore.
It was a particularly hot Saturday afternoon. My living room curtains closed to keep the sun out. It was dark except for the blue light coming from the television set. I was sitting on my couch, hot and uncomfortably sunk in among my cushions, watching yet another nondescript home decorating show—when I snapped. “That’s it,” I thought. “I’ve got to do this right now.” Peeling my ass off the couch, I went over to the television and pulled the plug. I didn’t even bother turning it off first—I just pulled the plug.
In a possessed frenzy I put on my shoes, pulled a large empty box from storage, wrapped the television in the two throw blankets I had on my couch, put the whole thing in the box, threw in the remotes, taped it shut enough to make the uni-bomber proud, hauled it downstairs, shoved it into the back of the storage, locked it and went back up to my apartment.
People live safely with televisions every day. So why did I need to take such drastic measures to save myself? Save my life? My television had transformed itself into something more. Something insidious, demanding and pervasive. It was a huge presence in my apartment—and my life. It kept me company; it filled my apartment with laughter and drama; it was my dinner partner and my Friday night date.
My television was my boyfriend.
Staring at the blank space where the television had just been, I felt dizzy. Could I do this? Did my television boyfriend have such a hold on me I couldn’t be apart from him without breaking out in a sweat and passing out? Then I realized I had been so busy watching TV, I had forgotten to eat lunch.
I grabbed a water and a box of cookies from the kitchen and sat down in a chair facing the dust outline of where my television very recently was, to consider what my life had become.
With my television now safely locked up in the basement, I had some peace and quiet to deal with what I should do next. And boy was it quiet. No laugh track, no voices filling the apartment and no commercial jingles. Quiet. I could hear the hum of the refrigerator. The quiet was such a contrast to the usual drone of the television. I had been automatically turning the television on when I got home and it would stay on as long as I was in the apartment, and wouldn’t get turned off until I went to bed. I sat in my living room in this defining quiet and realized every chair was positioned to face the now empty space the television had once occupied. Not only was my television my boyfriend, apparently I had been worshiping him!
I picked up my chair and turned it around to face my desk.
As a self-employed actor and puppeteer, it was my job to do everything regarding my career. All my paperwork, promoting, practice, and puppet-building. The more motivated I was in my work, the more work I got. I hadn’t worked seriously as an actor or a puppeteer for months, and the paperwork piled up on my desk and overflowing to the top of the bookshelf told a sad story. With the amount of television I was watching, I could name all the puppeteers and actors who were working, and all the shows they were working on and I bet not a single one of them had a television boyfriend. So it seemed I had been using my television as a means of procrastination.
I sat there again contemplating the silence when my phone rang. Who could it be? Maybe Jane asking me out for a party? Or Lori, wanting to catch a movie with me? Or Morris wanting to grab a coffee? Expectantly I answered the phone. “Hello?” It was my cable provider calling to offer me a free upgrade to their power package since I was a preferred customer. Murphy has such good timing. I politely declined and hung up the phone. Why hadn’t it been Jane, Lori or Morris? In fact, thinking about it, I hadn’t heard from any of them in a long time. Then the reality of the situation hit me like a 20 pound television in the head. I had been turning down invitations to go out with friends, because there was always entertainment at home, and I didn’t have to do my hair. Apparently I had done this one time too many, and so there were no more phone calls to me.
There were also no phone calls coming to me from potential boyfriends. But who can blame them—they hadn’t even met me; I’d been home watching television.
It had become stupefyingly clear: If I didn’t get rid of my television boyfriend, I would have no friends, no money, and a seriously sad and non-existent love live.
I wondered, for a moment, how that decorating show ended.
Recovering from my television boyfriend required me to pull myself out of my usual catatonic television watching state. Having let myself get to such a state, and letting my life get to this almost non-existent point was depressing. But finally being able to see what I had become inspired me to catapult myself back into a world operating without a laugh-track!
To help myself adjust, and to keep the deafening quiet at bay, I started playing CDs. Any CD at first, but then I began to put on music to compliment my mood at the time. I even started to put together playlists for certain events: cleaning, writing, friends over, bath, bed. I found having the music on in the background kept me company, without dominating my attention. My music became my low-maintenance friend.
The paperwork got the attention it needed, and I had a better focus on all things work-related. I started writing again, got myself a job building a puppet for a local theatrical production, and started creating my own puppets in my workshop. I was discovering my imagination was more vivid and colourful and entertaining than any television show.
And my friends, as it turns out, were happy to hear from me! And happy to see me. I was heading out to as many social events as I could, discovering I had company, laughter, and drama in my own life, and I didn’t need to rely on the television’s two-dimensional versions of life to entertain me.
So here I am nearly eight months clean of my television boyfriend. I don’t miss him, and I don’t think about him anymore, except for the occasional brief vision of him wrapped in blankets, locked in the basement storage with a thin layer of dust on him. It’s the blankets I miss the most—they would be really handy when cuddling with my new boyfriend. And no, my new boyfriend is not an iPod, Powerbook, or any other entertainment-based toy: he is, indeed, a real human being. A boyfriend with arms to hug me, a car to take me out in, and an apartment. . . where there lurks a television. And 86 channels.