Queen of the Mute

My Mom and I are the reigning queens of the mute button. I must give her top billing since she has actually worn the color off her mute button, and I haven't even come close....yet.

This mute button issue has made others in the same room with us very annoyed at times. When my brother is over he takes control of the remote so he can have a direct line to any channel that Cops might be on. But sometimes my Mom gets control and when she does, it's war.

His complaint is that she isn't quick enough on the draw for when the shows come back on. He hates missing the first few seconds of whatever it is they are watching. If it's a breaking news story I can understand it, you'd hate to miss the first few seconds of that. But the most you can miss on Cops is, "Put your hands where I can....."

Anyway I digress. At home I let Elaine keep control over the remote. I don't want the responsibility of the thing. The cats and I settle onto my chair, (a term I use loosely since they always try to squeeze me out of it), and also, we have much the same taste so I will watch whatever is on until I can't keep my eyes open anymore.

We are not really TV people anyway, we could shut it off for days and not really miss it. We have in fact. Elaine's parents on the other hand, were TV people. Still are. Now that her Mom is living with us it is really interesting. When she gets the remote, you never know what you will hear from the next room. The other day she had the Spanish channel full blast. Also, with Alzheimer's, she forgets what the remote is for at times.

One time Elaine was in the shower and her Mom handed the remote control through the curtain and said, "The phone is ringing and I don't know how to answer it." And she switches the remotes so that none of them will work, and then furiously punches the button and complains that, "I can't get this thing to work."

When they lived in their own home and we would go to visit, they would be sitting in the living room like mole people shades tightly drawn and TV hot to the touch from running Judge shows in a continual stream. I had no idea they had that many. It was extremely depressing to say the least.

And of course now that the Christmas ads have started I may have to take the remote until the New Year. Elaine is pretty good about it. All I have to say when they come on is....Mute, mute! And she does it, usually.

And finally the biggest reason this year that I may have to take ownership of the remote, whereby controlling when and how fast I can mute is this woman right here! She wins top billing in my book for most irritating TV ad personality.

The crazy Target lady. (Bless her heart)

She may just be the reason that my mute button is completely worn down by the end of the month.