Tortured by Bad TV

My son recently had to spend the night in the hospital for some testing (nothing serious, just tests). I have never spent a night in the hospital before, so I was a little unprepared for certain things. One of the most annoying things was who controls the TV in a shared hospital room? The answer - not me.

We were admitted at 8:00 am and placed in a room that was already occupied by a mother and her infant. When we walked in the room, I immediately noticed she had the TV on and turned to her side of the room. Fine, I thought, I don't need to watch TV right now. Then I realized what was on the TV and my stomach fell in horror. Little did I know that I was about to be subjected to eight hours of the worst TV programming ever made.

When we walked in, it was "Murder She Wrote," which has got to be the most irritating pseudo-detective show EVER. I hate Angela Lansbury and the show and her pollyanna-know-it-all-ness and bug-eyes. Then another episode of "Murder She Wrote." By this time, I am getting an eye twitch and sending death-thoughts to the TV set and the mother behind the curtain. Utter silence would be better than this.

The good news was we finally got off of "Murder She Wrote" after two hours. The bad news was it was replaced by two hours of "Little House on the Prairie," an hour of "Touched by an Angel," and then two hours of "Matlock." As each excrutiating hour passed, I entertained myself by thinking of various torture tools that would be better than this TV schedule. The rack. Sleep deprivation. Starvation. Electrodes to sensitive body parts. Humiliation. Being stoned. Jumping in a pool of lemon juice and razor blades. Ice picks under the fingernails. Watching American Idol. Listening to George Bush speak in complete sentences (Oh, wait, that might be an impossibility and watching him try is actually pretty amusing).

At 3 pm, she turned to Dr. Phil which turned into Oprah at 4 pm. Thank god, they checked out at 4:30. It would have been only a matter of minutes before I ripped back the curtain, grabbed the controller out of her hand, smacked her with it, stomped on it, and threw it out the window.

Wouldn't a decent person ask their new roommate if (a) she minded the TV being on; and (b) if she had anything she wanted to watch? I'm sorry, maybe I am expecting too much from people. I have such high standards . . . .