By Judy Seifert (Contact / Staff Bio)
October 24, 2009 - 08:55 a.m. EST

I’ve got nothing to complain about this week. No one to pick on. No gripes. Everything is great.

Wait. I take that back.

My son is visiting from California and I love having him here BUT, there is one thing that is getting on my nerves.

It’s his insistence on controlling my television by keeping the remote in his hands at all times.

The first few days, I let it go. I’m happy. He’s home. I love him. I only get to see him a few times a year.

We’ve now entered day six and his control of the remote is starting to frazzle me.

It’s not that I want to watch that much television. I’m just used to turning on to whatever I want to watch whenever I want to watch it.

As soon as I make a move to grab the remote, he beats me to it.

“What are you doing?” he says.

“I thought I’d watch some news or the weather.”

“In a few minutes, mom. I just want to catch some football scores right now.”

So, I wait. And I wait. And I wait some more.

Finally I give up and walk away.

He is a man, after all. And we all know how men are about remote controls.

His excuse for controlling the television is that he can’t stand the commercials. He’d rather skip over to another channel while the commercial’s running, then go back when programming resumes.

My question is “how do you know when the program comes back on?”

“Just a guess, years of experience, call it whatever you want,” he snaps back.

Hmmm.

Okay. I’m thinking to myself but don’t say – “well, what a wonderful talent you’ve developed. Years of college and thousands of my dollars prepare you for that?”

Easier to walk away than argue.

And besides, he’s only here for 10 days. He’s on vacation. Don’t even think about getting near my computer. All of this runs through my head as I walk away.

That’s it for me this week.

Bye.