I think I'll always belong to the group of arrogant people who don't watch television. There's good company in our group, and we all know it.
We all know we're better than the countless millions of Americans who spend their nights in front of the TV. We know a lot of things about how good we are, but we try not to show it.
We're shy people, and we're very different than the boisterous millions who can't go a minute without making a reference to \The Simpsons"" or rattling off predictions about an upcoming episode of ""Friends"" or ""Survivor."" Those people don't understand us, and I've had to put up with them for my entire life.
Because my parents are arrogant too, I grew up in a house that could only pick up one television station, and the reception of that station depended a lot on the weather.
Some days the TV worked, and some days it didn't, and some days it would start OK only to lose reception half way through a show. And this was all a little too overwhelming for my friends, so they never came over.
Instead, I always hung out at my friends' houses, where I sat through a lot of TV, and once for 15 minutes even got to hold the remote. That was the night I got to pick the show, and we all watched Ted Nugent shoot big guns, and I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.
That night I laughed for 15 minutes straight, while my friends laughed at me. Then, they wrestled the remote out of my hands, and we watched ""Seinfeld"" and ""Loveline."" And no one laughed out loud once.
I don't know if my friends really liked ""Seinfeld"" and ""Loveline,"" but I'd like to think they were just watching them so they'd be able to talk about them later with everyone else in America.
I think a lot people watch TV for the sake of talking about it later, but they don't even know it. And I don't care. I just wonder how anyone can have enough time to watch mediocre show after mediocre show. And I wonder how they can do it without hating themselves.
In the last year, I've been exposed to more TV than any other year of my life, and it's had me thinking. This year, for the first time, I've had a roommate who watches TV, and all year I've been trying to figure out how anyone paying to attend such an amazing university could waste so much time starring at an electronic box in his living room.
I've been watching my roommate watch TV all year, and slowly I've come to accept his culture. Now I almost find comfort in watching him watch ""ER,"" and last night I even sat down with him for a few minutes while he watched ""The Simpsons."" But that didn't last long.
And maybe I missed something by not watching the entire episode, but I doubt it, and I think it was probably the other way around. I think my roommate missed out on a lot of life while he watched the show. But I don't know. And then last week my parents decided to get cable.
andrewmiller@students.wisc.edu
