Forget the good old days

---

Enter Keyword(s):

Enter a City:

Select a State:

 – All United States –  Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Select a Category:

 – All Job Categories –  Accounting Admin & Clerical Automotive1 Banking1 Biotech1 Broadcast - Journalism1 Business Development Construction Consultant Customer Service Design Distribution - Shipping Education Engineering Entry Level Executive Facilities Finance General Business General Labor Government Health Care Hotel - Hospitality Human Resources Information Technology Insurance Inventory Legal Legal Admin Management Manufacturing Marketing Nurse Other Pharmaceutical Professional Services Purchasing - Procurement QA - Quality Control Research Restaurant - Food Service Retail - Grocery Sales Science Skilled Labor - Trades Strategy - Planning Supply Chain Telecommunications Training Transportation Warehouse

• Advanced Job Search
• Search by Category

My species lives for such nights. I am man. I am one with my recliner. My wife is away and the remote is mine. It is in my hand, where the Lord intended it to be.

Kaye and I don't fight over the remote. She somehow endures the twitches of my thumb and the constant jerks between ESPN, CNN, TNT, MSNBC, CMT and the WWE. She survived a season of Dickie V's rants and she's no longer surprised when the Sports Reporters all talk at once. She calls them the Crazy Guys, and they are.

I'm not certain when man decided the remote was his, but by now we see it as our birthright. Even when I nod off to sleep, the remote is in my grip. They'll have to pry it out of my cold dead hand.

She's not home so I won't have to take the remote with me when I leave the room. I am ready to bounce back and forth between episodes of "Law & Order" when I'm not checking on the score in whatever game of the NBA's endless playoffs is being played. I recline and I reach for my remote. This is the way I think heaven will be.

Only the remote doesn't work. We had been having trouble with it but now it has quit all together. I shake it, wiggle it and threaten to hurl it against the wall. I'm lost. I don't know what to know.

I try to remember what we did before the remote came into our lives. I finally remember the little buttons on the front of the TV but soon realize that will require me getting up out of my chair and crossing the room to change a channel. I know it will be a long night.

The next day I stop for batteries. The remote requires AAA batteries and all we had in the cupboard were AA. Out with the old and in with the new, but still nothing happens. This means saying goodbye to a friend who has served us well. Never complaining and always faithful.

This is serious. Nearly 100 channels are waiting on me so I can't sit there and watch just one.

In a moment of clarity, I remember what our world was like without the remote. It was a primitive time where there were only a handful of stations to watch. We had no microwave popcorn to snack on because we had no microwave. We couldn't pop in a DVD or plug in a VCR either. Sometimes we were quiet, reading a book or carrying on a conversation.

Thursday my life got back to normal. For $8.55 at Radio Shack, I made a new friend. It took only a few minutes at home before I felt I had known that new remote forever. We were meant to be together.

You can keep the good old days. I am one with my recliner, a cold drink sits at my side, and my remote is in my hand where it is supposed to be.

Until Kaye gets home anyway.

Contact Richard Hyatt at rhyatt@ledger-enquirer.com