Can it really be 7 years since we last owned a TV?

When we get calls from cable companies they usually go something like this:

Cable guy: Good afternoon, ma’am. We’re calling to see if you would be interested in upgrading your service – we have a special offer at the moment where for an introductory rate of $19.99/month a switch to our provider will bring access to over 100 HD channels.

The Gypsy Mama (TGM): Sir, you know what, I am just going to cut you off right there because we don’t have a TV.

Cable guy: What?

TGM: I said, we don’t own a TV.

Cable Guy: I don’t understand.

TGM: Well, we don’t need cable because we don’t have a TV set.

Cable Guy: So you don’t have cable, you only have the basic channels.

TGM: No, what I’m saying is we don’t own a TV set. At all. Anywhere in the house. No cable and no basic channels either.

Cable Guy: I don’t understand. I’ve never heard that one before. (Sounds of script flipping frantically.)

TGM: (starting to enjoy the call) We. Don’t. Have. A. TV.

Cable Guy: No TV? So, you’re saying you don’t need cable.

TGM: Nope.

Cable Guy: Well, wow. Ok, then. Well, I guess that’s it. So, like, bye.

It freaks other people out as well. Not just the cable guys. It freaked me out big time when it first happened. And believe me; it wasn’t on purpose when it started. It was a horrible nightmare of withdrawal. I blame my husband.

He dragged me to Kyiv, Ukraine with him for his Ph.D. fieldwork research. I didn’t speak Russian. I didn’t speak Ukrainian. And, little did I know, practically no one in Ukraine over 20 speaks English. And there is NO. ENGLISH. TV. AND NO. ENGLISH. MOVIES. Oh, it was bad.

So, there I am stranded in a country where I know no one other than my husband and he’s away a lot at class and doing research. What does a girl do in a situation like that (bearing in mind this was before the beautiful invention of internet TV)? She gets on line of course and READS THE TRANSCRIPTS of her favorite shows.

I know. I know. Sad and pathetic. But I was desperate to know who Rory would end up with and if Lorelai would ever get together with Luke Danes. So I read the scripts. In retrospect I still find it hard to believe I was that hard up for TV.

But I was. The withdrawal period was rough. I tried to ease the let down by compensating with bad, B-grade American movies that probably never made it onto an American TV set but went straight to the former USSR. They were, of course, dubbed into Russian. However, the dubbing was so badly done it was simply added clumsily on the heels of the English. So, if you turned up the volume really, really loud and tried to tune out the Russian in your head you could pretend you were watching an English language movie.

According to Pete, I have never been more pathetic. And annoying. Russian is a very loud and shouty language in its natural state. Crank it up to maximum volume and your husband is suddenly way less sympathetic about your agony of withdrawal. (As if I didn’t have to hear volumes about his own angst-ridden, pepperoni, pizza-less existence. Good grief.)

But two years into the film noire experience that was our time in Ukraine and I was a nicely recovering addict who was getting by on DVD movies, sitcoms (we once watched all 10 seasons of “Friends” in a month), and the occasional American blockbuster that we endured in Russian out of our desperation to keep up with pop culture. This exercise, however, back-fired on more than one occasion; I will never forget how half way through Brad Pitt’s “Troy” Pete leaned over and expressed his surprise that the characters were so fixated on Hercules. It took me a few seconds to snort out my laughter; Achilles, in Russian, is pronounced “HA-KEE-LEES,” which, I admit, sounds a lot like Hercules and combined with Pete’s total lack of Greek mythology in his upbringing created a great deal of confusion and, on my part, hilarity.  And yes, in case you’re wondering, I had learned enough Russian by this point to understand a Brad Pitt movie better than Peter (toot, toot, yea that’s my own horn you’re hearing). And furthermore, let me just say that the movie was way more impressive in the deep, Russian baritone of the Achilles we heard than the “Achilles-light” version that I was disappointed to learn was what Brad actually delivered when I caught the original English version a year or so later.

But I digress. Our re-entry into an English speaking country was in South Africa via my parents. We lived with them for a while as we re-acclimated. So it was their TV that was our first homecoming to English-language, televised entertainment. But, there are anywhere from 6 to 8 children in my parents’ house at any one time. Two of them are teenagers. Need I say more? The TV was rarely up for grabs. And since we’d sort of become accustomed to being without one, we didn’t realize what we were missing. And more importantly, we had just had our first baby and between sleep deprivation, hallucinations of napping only to find ourselves still wide awake and a million dirty diapers TV just kind of slipped off the radar.

Since then we’ve moved in and out of several places of our own on a few continents and just never got around to getting a TV set. Don’t get me wrong, we love movies and enjoy watching a sitcom episode or two at a time. But, TV had finally worked its way out of our systems.

Now, that’s not to say that we don’t gravitate towards “The Idol” as we lovingly call my father-in-law’s juggernaut set when we are home for the holidays. We still like to be entertained as much as the next guy. But, there’s something we have learned about ourselves and our TV habits: we get sucked in. There’s no middle ground. The TV takes no prisoners and we are mindless zombies to its siren call.

All metaphor aside, I am just not a great mom when TV is an option. I zone out. I WANT to zone out. And then I get irritated when my kids distract me from my TV. Their attempts to get my attention begin to irritate the heck out of me and I wish they would just suck on their sippy cups and shut the heck up so that I can focus on the snarling visage of House and learn what his team can teach me in 45 minutes about acute myeloblastic leukaemia and the entrails of a tape worm.

It’s not pretty.

Over the last seven years I have come to know myself and my weaknesses that much better. There’s nothing like kids to bring those out in you. I love to sink waist-deep in a good yarn and while away the afternoon in my own imagination. And when doing so, I am a distracted parent who can be mean. I remember this about my mom. I don’t want my kids to remember it about me.

So while I was dragged away from the set kicking and screaming seven years ago, I have stayed away because I like having a clear head. I like it not being cluttered with show times and dates, plots and characters I feel beholden to. I like that there’s room and time in there for unrushed bedtime conversations with Pete and leisurely creativity for me. Honestly, it’s just not that hard anymore. In fact, I hardly think about TV at all. Except, you know, when the cable guy calls.