Photo by Larry Mohr
When my mom and my brother moved into a house together in Florida, my brother built a big wall unit. In the middle of it was a big empty space. Then he patiently waited for the day Mom said, “Let’s buy a big-screen TV to put in that spot.” Sneaky, eh?
Sometimes when I call her, the TV is on and she has to turn it off so we can hear each other talk. A couple weeks ago she said,
“I’ve discovered that most people don’t realize you can turn off the television. It doesn’t have to be on.”
How true. I don’t really watch a lot of television. Sometimes I have it on just for noise, though if you asked me later I could not tell you a single thing that happened in the program. We’re so conditioned to have it on—or to stream to our computers and tablets and phones to watch.
