THIS is why I'm not married

[shipperx]

Yes, I'm a single woman over a certain age and I'm very, very set in my ways. Very. But this type thing annoys the shit out of me and it's this sort of thing that leaves me entirely happy to be single and spoiled rotten.

My father was in town again for medical tests (the surgery isn't scheduled yet but they ran the first tests today and another set are scheduled for next week). So I ended up having dinner at my sister's. So, while my sister and I made dinner, my brother-in-law disappeared upstairs to watch baseball. While he was off doing this, my sister and I had the television in the kitchen on LOST's rerun. My nephew came downstairs and instantly changed the channel. "Hey!" I protested. "Did you ever consider that maybe we were watching that." He complained but actually looked chargrinned and asked whether I wanted the channel turned back. I wasn't super insistent or anything. Sure, whatever. But he wandered out of the room a few minutes later. I turned the channel back. So ten minutes later my brother-in-law comes in and WHILE I'M STANDING THERE WATCHING THE SHOW, changes the channel to baseball. Hey! You think, that maybe the one who had been IN the kitchen with the TV on might... oh, I don't know, have been watching the channel that it was on before you waltzed in and changed the channel without so much as inquiring whether someone was WATCHING that? I made some sort of noise about it and he (rather rudely IMO) said "Well I'm not watching that" and turned it to baseball. Well, you know, while you might consider a TV drama "boring"... I tend to think baseball is BORING. And... um... I was the one in the kitchen. You guys were hanging out upstairs. And beyond that, it's just plain RUDE to walk in and change the channel when someone else is watching.

Being a single woman, I -- unlike my sister -- am far, far, FAR less tolerant of this sort of thing. Poor woman relinquished claims to the remote a decade ago. Personally, I watch what I want to watch. Their house has 6 freaking TVs. If the game was so goddamned special he could watch it in the next room instead of changing the channel in the kitchen while we're freaking making dinner for HIM!

It isn't so much that he did it. It's the utter bald faced way that he did it as if what we were watching was unimportant and we didn't even deserve the courtesy of at least asking whether we were watching it before changing the channel. It's just plain RUDE! (As was running the game throughout dinner. If it was a regular TV show it would have been turned off. But nooooo.... if it's boring-ass baseball we have to watch it through dinner (even if my sister and I continued to mock how BORING baseball is throughout the meal until my brother-in-law was tetchy about it.

But, seriously, there are certain luxuries to being a single woman. Utter control of the remote is one of them... and a home blessedly free of constant ESPN and Newschannels as the TV defaults are another (Why is it that for most men all that's needed is ESPN and the newschannel most suited to their political affiliation?)

I'm a set in my ways single woman, and I'm very intolerant of men thinking they are the lord and master of the remote control or that male preferences in viewing habits inherently trump the females.

It wasn't a big deal... but these things annoy me.

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Part of it is (whispers) he's a yankee. Not a Yankee, but a Red Sox fan and...well... baseball tends to not be that big of a deal in the South where FOOTBALL is god. My dad is a sport fanatic... but doesn't give a damn about baseball, so I pretty much have no affection for the game (unlike college football).

I grew up as a cheerleader so I had to attend ALL the freaking sports events in Jr. High and High School. Football I actually enjoy watching. Basketball can be fun but there are so many freaking games in a season that even today I think of Basketball as something of a chore. It can be fun while it's one, but eh. Baseball I always HATED. Sucks up way, way, way, WAY too much time. The game takes freaking forever to play and most of the time nothing much happens. Plus up until the 80s all the national teams of any note (up until the Braves became any good) were all Northern teams so -- eh. But worse than eh -- takes too freaking much TIME and it's boring -- eh. (Which, of course is an offense to all people who are obsessed with the game) but I stand by my pronouncement. Baseball is glacial and BOR-RING!

[shapinglight]

You won't get any arguments from me, but then to us across the Pond, all American sports seem pretty weird, have to admit (although I'm sure that cricket looks that way to you too).

Baseball is definitely the least explicable, though.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Cricket is a bizarre and perplexing game. When I was in high school, my BIL got a fellowship at Guys Hospital in London (my oldest nephew was actually born in London), so my BIL and sister moved to London for a year. I lived with them that summer. There would be cricket matches on TV and we never DID figure out what in the hell was going on in the game. Never understood it at all.

Whereas I've attended football games regularly since I was born. I was laughing one day that we indoctrinate kids early into the culture of college football fandom. Even my 10 year old NEICE cannot escape as I was noticing last year that it was my sister and myself teaching her about what was going on in the game so that she'd understand.

Football is almost in a Southerner's blood. Baseball? Not so much.

[shapinglight]

Re: cricket. Heh! My mum had a teatowel that had the rules of cricket on it, written as confusingly as possible - but still perfeclty accurate.

Really it's an excuse for snoozing the day away in the sunshine (if there is any, which is always a problem) and politely clapping ever now and then.