Leave Me to My Own Devices

I am worried about screen time. And as I toddle around, sometimes I feel that the cards are stacked against those of us who are. For some reason, everywhere I go, there seems to be a TV blaring in my ear. The other morning, I crossed the state line to fill up with gas in the wee hours. As soon as I selected my gas type, some guy came on the screen trying to lure me in to the station’s convenience store so I could stock up on Monster drinks. Now I am at my peak energy level at 4 a.m., so this request was especially ridiculous, and I just didn’t want to hear it.

A few weeks ago, we went out to dinner at an establishment in town, and the hostess sat us down at a table right under a huge, blaring TV. If I wanted to watch TV, I could stay home. My partner noticed me twitching and called the waitress over and asked her to shut it off . This necessitated finding and figuring out the remote, and it appeared that no one had ever made such a crazy request. And these days if I go to a doctor’s appointment, I always bring my bookbag and plan to settle in, catch up on my book and wait. But all the offices appear to have added a TV in their waiting room which is loudly announcing all of the possible catastrophic illnesses that await, and by the time I see the doc I am in a cold sweat.

At any rate, it is all too much. Too many big screens with folks shouting at me. All I want to do is to curl up in the fetal position clutching my book to my chest. Is that too much to ask?