I don’t have a television. I smugly offer that personal factoid at every available opportunity. I think this is one of my healthiest habits, and I wish more households followed my lead. The average American watches four hours of television a day, and 99 percent of American households have at least one TV. By those numbers, I figure I am in the top 1% of humanity.
I haven’t had a television for a while, and I haven’t had cable for even longer – several years. The television I get is in morsels, from other people’s houses, or, now that I’m back in the Unites States after living in Paris a couple years, from Hulu or iTunes. However, I have found that I rarely turn to these channels to stream TV, either. I don’t like the cost, and I don’t like the hours I would lose to the tube. I already have my blogroll weighing me down; I don’t need HGTV making me a hermit. I have just become accustomed to life without TV. Instead, I read books; I write; I go to the theater; I take my dog on long strolls through our neighborhood.
I admit, this life choice is somewhat painful during football season, or when major news events occur. In the latter case, the television is a salve - a soothing authority figure reassuring me that I am connected to the world. In the former, the television is a shackle – a ball and chain trapping me in a dark, greasy bar on beautiful, crisp fall weekends when I should be out riding my bike through pumpkin patches. Still, even football is voluntary. Aside from30Rock and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I don’t follow any program religiously, or even curiously. And my life is better for it. I am not tethered to a broadcast schedule –
I’m sorry. I have to stop. This just isn’t honest.
My name is Emily Petrone, and I am addicted to Mad Men.
It started innocently enough. I had experimented with the first season, back in grad school. Sure, I enjoyed it, but it caused no problems. So when a friend came over recently and left his Netflix account open on my computer, I thought, I’ll just watch one season. But after one season, I wanted more. I thought, I’ll reward myself: an episode for every story I finish. But an episode became two, became three . . . I was in denial. I told myself I could stop at any time – that I didn’t even like TV. I could just give it up, cold turkey. Go back to work. I’d done it before, with other shows: Grey’s Anatomy, West Wing, Party of Five, Alf . . .
It’s been two weeks, and I can barely leave my computer to go to the bathroom.
I’m in so deep now. It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning. It’s the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night – if I go to bed. My days have become one, long, stoic, repressed, expertly tailored, smoky, Americana blur. I’m terrified that my friend will change his Netflix password, cutting off my supply. And I think my roommates might suspect something. I think they saw me watching Don Draper on my computer when I said I was updating my resumé. I’ve been skipping my workouts. I’ve been avoiding my friends. My bank account is drained. Well, that’s unrelated, but still –
I need help.
Once I finish the fourth season, I need to be cured. I have to not care about this show and these characters anymore. I have to conquer this before March 16, 2012, when season five premieres. Because that won’t be on Netflix. If I want to see that . . . I’ll have to buy a television.