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

[spikewriter]

And I am so happy that I married a man who hates sports, so ESPN is not a problem in our house. The newschannels and C-SPAN is a different story, but he would never simply change the channel while I was watching something -- mainly because he knows I'd probably whack him over the head with the remote before changing it back if he did. Still, there's a reason the remote is referred to as "the dick of power".

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Part of it, I think is the age gap. My sister is 12 years older than I am. So back when my BIL and my sister began dating in med school, my sister was 24 and I was 11 going on 12. That sort of tends to set a tone for a realtionship. I'm the "wacky kid sister" to him. In fact, it sort of struck me the other day that the age gap between myself and my oldest nephew isn't MUCH larger than the age gap between my sister and myself. 16 years versus 12 years.