You can’t pluck me!
I tossed out my television in 1993, and have never missed not having one. There is an interesting social phenomena you start to observe after about 10 years of not owning one, when everything you know about TV is now just history. TV personalities are deeply part of peoples lives.
At any gathering of friends or colleagues it is inevitable that I become engulfed in some conversation which everyone else understands and the person who initiates the conversation asumes that everyone understands the subject and every detail. All enthusiastically contribute to the meme but I have not a clue what anyone is talking about. When I ask what is everyone talking about they are shocked that I’m clueless about any detail and of course it turns out to be about the menusia of some TV personalities life or worse the life of their onscreen character. I’m in a cultural limbo.
Close friends who have known me forever will start taking to me about a TV show or personality even when I’m the only one they are talking to. For 12 years I have had to stop them mid-conversation to say “Sorry I don’t have a TV, I have no idea what your talking about” — it’s like their minds have never been able to rationally process this fact and can’t store it for later reference.
In 1999 a knock at the door of my unit revealed a young guy trying to sell me on a cable TV service. I asked “Does it come with a free TV?”. “No. Why?” he asked with confused look. “I don’t have a TV” I replied politely closing the door on his shocked and troubled face. “Hey Bill!” I heard him whisper in urgent tones to his mate on the second landing “The guy in number 2 hasn’t got a TV!!??!!”
The world can be a scary place.
