Click

One of my favorite past times is to relax in front of the TV in the evening and think about little more than how much I like relaxing in front of the TV with The Boy and various cats. Part of the reason this activity – if it can even be called that – is so delightful is the convenience of the remote control.

Everyone makes fun of the lost remote, how you’d sit and watch the same channel for hours, regardless of what’s on, just to avoid having to get up and go to the television. This is a surprisingly true observation and one that I am guilty of on occasion.

Take last night for example; I was watching … I think it was Friends … and rather than get up at 8pm when the show ended I sat through some sort of model search show because I couldn’t be bothered to move my butt 6 feet to press a button on the TV. I did change it at 9pm because something truly horrible came on and when I did choose another channel it was just one button press away from where I’d started.

The remote is gone. Oh, I know where it is. I know exactly where it is. The garbage. Sans batteries which thankfully did not make their way into the digestive track of one large adolescent Ridgeback. They did not join little plastic pieces he no doubt ingested in his systematic destruction of one of my very favorite modern conveniences.

How, one might ask oneself, did a Ridgeback who is secured in a dog safe room get his teeth on a TV remote? Well, he spent the day prying the expen away from the open door of his room and eventually getting out to amuse himself in various acts of destruction. I leave (or rather, left) the door open with the expen blocking it so that he didn’t spend the entire day alone, the cats could see him, he could watch them wander past, and it didn’t completely cut him off from the house. No more Mr. Boy. My kindness extends only to the point where you accept that you are in the room til I say you may come out. So now the door is shut and he must suffer the day in isolation. It’s taken him months to figure out he can move the expen … months. Sigh.

I suspect since his escape at the show he has realized that with enough muscle you can get yourself pretty much anywhere you want. Granted – it’s a joy to come home and be immediately greeted at the door by a bouncing happy Boy … somewhat diminished by the sight of remote control carnage on the livingroom floor.