Roscoe and I do not have cable. There are a number of reasons for this; the first being that I haven’t yet figured out how to work the television itself. It has three remotes. Roscoe says that the remotes and the television are easy to operate. I question this factoid, as he also claimed that his car was easy to operate and I spent fifteen minutes in the driveway trying unsuccessfully to turn it on.

Once I tried to order two of Suzanne Somers but she was out of stock. (Photo Credit: torontopubliclibrary.typepad.com)

The second reason that we don’t have cable is that I’m very susceptible to marketing; subliminal or otherwise. I don’t sit for long periods of time so my television watching is limited to programs that are ten minutes long or less – like an ad on the shopping channel. When Roscoe and I were dating, I lived at home with my parents who had cable. This led to a number of phone calls in which I tried to convince Roscoe that I needed an ab blaster or a mandolin made in Switzerland despite the fact that I believed in neither gyms nor cooking at the time.

Hence in the interest of not filling our house with useless pieces of exercise equipment and chotchkes  we live without cable. And life was fine and dandy, that was until Netflix arrived.

Although Netflix does not have a shopping channel, it does have documentaries. Unlike sitcoms or movies one can watch ten minutes of a documentary, pause it then walk away only to sit back down a day later without feeling as though a plot refresher is necessary. For this reason I love documentaries. However my favourite genre of documentaries are the sketchy ones. Documentaries without enough proof or information tend to be short thus my sense of accomplishment is greater as I can watch two of these a week versus just one of the more reputable, longer documentaries.

Although this new habit has had some unexpected side effects- last night Roscoe walked in on this scene.

The Great Unwashed stands in front of the bedroom mirror staring intently into her reflection.

The Great Unwashed -“You are valid” pauses, still staring into her reflection. “And hopeful” pauses again for longer “Also you like cheese.”

Roscoe unable to watch this bizarre scene for any longer asks “What are you doing?”

The Great Unwashed speaks to Roscoe’s reflection in the mirror – “I watched part of a documentary today on vegans. It told me to look at my reflection and repeat a message to myself every night, only I forgot was the message was.”

Roscoe- “Vegans don’t eat cheese.”

The Great Unwashed – “It might have been a movie about the Kennedy conspiracies, I don’t really know, I only watched ten minutes of it.”

For some reason I have a feeling the Netflix subscription will be cancelled shortly.