Television has become a bit of a Pack Rat. There are a gazillion things to watch on TV. I mean it. A gazillion.
First, regular TV has ballooned. If you have an antenna, you have a ton of channels, even in little podunk Preble County. Way more than the three channels we had growing up. ABC, CBS, NBC. Period. Now, slap on that the fact that most people have either cable TV or satellite TV. That bumps the number up to about 800 channels, depending on your package. You can watch anything from Gospel music productions, to big purple dancing dinosaurs, to hundreds of shows, just short of porn. But what the heck, if you like that kind of thing, you can see it on Pay-Per-View.
Move away from the old school “conventional” TV and you have “streaming.” Yes streaming. Not like wading through a creek in your fly-fishing gear. No. But streaming any kind of movie or program in your wildest dang dreams.
All you need is a streaming device, like a Roku, or Google Chromecast, or an Amazon Firestick. Or a Smart TV.
The bottom line is…. there are a gazillion things to watch on TV, if that is your gig. If you can’t find something to watch… you are doing it wrong.
Now certain things are not my cup of tea. I can do without bearded duck hunters, or NBA Basketball. But give me a dose of 20/20, 60 Minutes, or Dateline NBC, and I am all in.
One show in particular, I can not watch. Actually it is an entire genre of shows. The Hoarders. Firstly, it is a form of mental illness, in extreme cases. I am not sure how I feel about this as entertainment value. Compulsive hoarding is often considered a form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). This is largely due to the fact that up to 40% percent of people with OCD…. have some sort of compulsion to hoard.
On the other hand, it does not affect all OCD people, AND not all hoarders have OCD. This is starting to sound like one of those new math word problems. Forget the dang statistics.
It is an illness.
The second thing….. I am OCD. But I go to the other extreme. I do not like clutter, junk, or things just sitting around. Because of this… I can not watch those shows because it makes me a little crazy to see that much “stuff” in one place.
And you know how ALL of this started? The term Pack Rat. I was wondering about it origins… and then I got segued.
So. To wrap this big mess up tonight…. let me leave you with my original thought. Pack Rats.
They are nest builders. They are kind of cute too.. They use plant material…. anything really…. branches, twigs, sticks… to build their cute little nests. Pack Rats will get into everything from attics to car engines. They are little thieves. They have been said to “steal” their “treasures”…. which sometimes causes a ton of damage.
Here is a funny thing about them… if they find something they want…. they will be like…. “Whoooooaaaaa.” They will drop what they are currently carrying… like a big fatty stick…. and “trade” it for the new item. They are particularly fond of shiny objects. These two traits have inspired an anecdote about a man finding his dime replaced by two nickels.
So there you have it. Flip on the TV… if you can’t find a show about actual Pack Rats… perhaps you can find one about “how to write.” And call me. I obviously need to tune in tonight.