Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Day 3 - My Quietly Noisy House & the Jehovah's Witness

This might be old hat for the typical non-TV watcher, but I've discovered today that my house is alive. Without the TV on, I'm suddenly aware of all the little sounds that were probably always a part of its rhythm, just unheard by me beneath the loud commercials that were a mainstay in our home until 3 days ago.

I truly can't remember the last time the TV was off for the entire day. This must be why today everything seemed so quiet, and yet so noisy! As I ate my breakfast, I noticed the sounds of the birds, the squirrels, the creaks and groans of an old home, and even the sound of my cat stretching over on the other side of the room. (Does his spine always crack like that?) The sound of the school bus coming down our street, a group of kids running, the neighbor's dog barking and my neighbor hushing her loudly. I'm sure these are all typical, every day sounds that were always there but were simply blended out by the constant hum of the TV. But today they seemed to take on a new meaning, highlighting something conspicuously absent, which made me feel, surprisingly, very alone in the house.

I'm alone often in the daytime and never seem to really notice it. Apparently I felt like I wasn't alone when there were voices coming from the TV. Without it, today was surprisingly lonely. Perhaps it's TV withdrawal or just an adjustment after a weekend filled with fun BBQ's and lots of people to talk to?

As a sign of my state of mind today, I actually answered the door to a Jehovah's Witness. Two of them actually. The JW and her friend were very pleasant as they introduced themselves and then dove right into it:
"Do you feel a time will come when there is justice in the world?"
This seemed like quite a heavy question to ponder before Noon.
I said I wasn't interested.

They quickly offered some literature, and instead of politely rejecting it, as is my normal reaction if I accidentally answer the door or the JWs see me through the window on the couch, I actually took it. I guess I wanted to keep my options open. You know, in case I'm really bored in a few days and they come by again to see what I thought of it. Unless I get used to the silence soon, I might even invite them in for coffee. We can discuss better starter questions.

An interesting sidenote - I canceled our AT&T Uverse subscription today. When asked why we were canceling our service, I actually told the gentleman that we had decided to give up TV. (Another sign I must have been lonely. I usually can't wait to get off the phone with customer service people.) He said his name was Al from Ohio, but Al might have been from Ohio, India. He seemed very confused by my response. He asked me a series of questions in an attempt to decipher what I was saying. In the end, I think he manually keyed the explanation into his computer. There must not be a dropdown selection for "Giving Up TV" in the TV subscription world.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting note on this, I recently discovered that Prince is a Jehovah's Witness....... who knew Purple Rain is now Kingdom Hall?

    ReplyDelete