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Digital Slob Curt Brandao |
Unisar lets us cheat
with Temptress TVEveryone dreams of an ideal partnership, of spending a lifetime in a committed union that grows out of an eternal wellspring of kindness, passion, forgiveness and acceptance, unwavering for time immemorial.
Respectable People might call such a thing marriage. Digital Slobs call it DISH Network.
And as any Slob who had both a great TV package and a soulmate handed to them on a silver platter will be quick to tell you -- it can all be quite a hassle.
Sadly, after spending four years of high school Friday nights walking our dogs and watching Wheel of Fortune with our moms, Slobs are not only high-endurance loners at heart, but are permanently addicted to TV, even when there's an obviously more interactive, and perhaps scantily clad, game in town sitting right next to us.
But for all the grief TV viewing causes in domestic partnerships, you'd think we'd address it directly early on, before our bathrooms overflowed with someone else's skin-care products.
If nuptials concluded with a ceremonial pyrotechnic exploding of our remote controls, for example, it'd make many Slobs think twice -- there's not a bachelor party buzz with a half-life strong enough to dull that kind of wedding-day symbolism. Yet, inexplicably, not even the Defense of Marriage Act keeps us from waltzing right into wedlock with a ring on one hand, and a universal remote on the other.
It's easy to see why our TV addiction ignites our significant others' significant temper. Face it, even by home-wrecker standards, TVs are kinda slutty. Always ready, they have the gall to seduce us right in our living room, right under our partners' noses.
Not immune to guilt, some Slobs wait for our live-in honeys to hit the sack, then turn on the bedroom TV with the audio so low our noses must be an inch away from the pixels, and it looks like we're watching "Will & Grace" through a pasta strainer.
But if technology can expose the dirty laundry in our relationships, it can also give us tools to sweep it back under the carpet. And, true to form, the Digital Age provides us with a kind of peacemaker, and thankfully not in the ironic intercontinental-ballistic-missile sense.
There's nothing new about TV listeners like the $50 Unisar (www.unisar.comwww.unisar.com), but for double-life leading Slobs, it can serve as an indispensable divorce lawyer prevention system.
The listener consists of a cordless headset and a infrared transmitter that plugs into the wall and also into your set's audio jack. Put on the headset, turn it on (each ear muff has a volume control), and you can quietly enjoy TV while your spouse fills in the silence with uninterrupted snores.
The headset uses two AA batteries, one on each side, and is a bit bulky. You may look like a late-70s cosmonaut when you strap it on, but it's worth it.
Even if you're a living-single Slob still waiting for that special lifemate, one who will celebrate -- and not shun -- your penchant for boiling macaroni and cheese in the nude, a TV listener can still come in handy.
Say you live in a "quiet, please" condo with paper-thin walls, populated by retirees who have the building super on speed dial, and pore over the tenant rulebook in their homes the way young Saudi Muslims study the Koran in madrasas. With this device, you can enjoy programs long after the decibel curfew kicks in right after the 6 o'clock news.
As for coupling Digital Slobs, television viewing may always feel like infidelity, but with a TV listener we can at least do it the respectful way, behind our loved ones' backs.
Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's production editor. Reach him at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com
