Here's Your Pill

I don't watch much TV. I have nothing against TV, but if given the choice of doing anything else (which I can normally find to do) or watching a program, I would rather do anything else. There are times though when that is not possible as was the case at 3:00am this morning.

I'm a pretty solid sleeper. The one thing I am really grateful for is my ability to hit the pillow and totally pass out even when there is no alcohol involved. It is very rare for me to wake up in the middle of the night but last night, for whatever reason, I did. Maybe my sleep was disturbed by the one too many drinks I had (which in this case were only two) but I woke with a raging headache. Who the hell drinks Drambuie anyway?

After tossing and turning for about 15 minutes I knew that falling right out again was not happening. So I did what I have done maybe a total of 6 times in my entire life. I got out of bed and went to the living room to watch....TV. In answer to the question being asked...No, I do not have a TV in my bedroom. Never have. According to Feng Shui principles, it is very bad so as a habit I picked up when I first started understanding these principles (during my brief marriage) I nixed the TV in the bedroom and have never missed it. I think that is the main reason I can sleep so easily.

But last night I found myself curled up on my sofa, with remote in hand. I have no idea what is on TV at this time of night but I had heard stories. TV is sometimes lovingly referred to as the idiot box. I wonder if the person that coined that term came up with it after a night like mine. If I hate the programming that is on during the day then I was in for a real treat at 3:00am.

There is a reason some shows are relegated to the pre dawn airwaves. I imagine that scheduling programming at those hours attract less advertising dollars (not sure) so in effect, stations will not promote premium shows. Except for for repeats of popular sitcoms which a great deal of the population cannot watch in primetime because of work schedules, the rest of the airwaves are filled with minus B movies, various sport shows and what quickly became my favorite...Paid Programming.

Wow. A plethora of things I could buy to make my live worth living. Who knew?

There were so many I found if difficult to watch just one so I flipped back and forth between three. One was a Colon Cleanse product. I was far more interested in the two men talking than I was with the benefits of the product itself. As I watched the two interact. The smiles were great. They were animated and talking about regular bowel movements with about the same forced excitement as a sports commentator at a bowling tournament. The energy was so intense I imagine the product was practically selling itself. The one thing I did note was that one of them...presumably the 'inventor or developer' of the product looked like he needed a pill himself. With a jaw set real tight and sitting as straight as inhumanly possible, this guy should be the poster child for practice what you preach. He looked in great need of some relief.

This made me think of the comedian Bill Engvall's famous line "Here's Your Sign". I thought how great would it be to walk around with a bottle of these tablets and when coming across some surly person, just walk up, and while giving them one, saying "Here's your pill, have a nice day." And move on. I wish I had those 10 years ago. Man but the amount of relief I could have provided for a great many people.

The second was a CD which promised to hypnotize you so that you could "Think Your Way Thin." You mean, all I have to do to lose the 20lbs I've gained since last year is to just THINK about losing them? I mean...WOW why didn't THAT occur to me before? All this time on my bike has been wasted because, shoot, between thinking my way to faster weight loss coupled with the possibility of cleansing my innards...I'm good to go...literally.

The third was promoting the book "Debt Cures" http://www.amazon.com/Debt-Cures-They-Dont-About/dp/0979825814/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219929883&sr=1-1 by Keven Trudeau who was surrounded by the late night panel of financial geniuses including a former playmate. Here were five beautiful women who acted more like the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders than finance experts. This is not to say these women were not intelligent, I don't know them, but from the sound of the script they were obviously reading from I wondered just who his target audience really was. But then, maybe Jamie Dimon was not available.

After about 10 minutes of flippage, I gave up and settled on watching Alton Brown's show "Good Eats" and learned the proper way of making mussels. At least in this case, I have something to show for my sleepless night.