Saratoga News

Caught between commercials

By Sue Fagalde Lick

One of life's great dilemmas: The telephone rings in the middle of your favorite TV show. You want to talk to the caller, but you've been waiting all day to watch this show. What do you do?

I was taught that live visitors overruled all broadcast media. When Grandma and Grandpa showed up, you turned off the TV. Even if it was just Mrs. Smith from down the street and you'd been waiting all week to see the Monkees on "American Bandstand," the show was over. You pushed the off button and offered your full attention to your guests.

The only exception my folks made was when friends arrived just as the first broadcast of man walking on the moon began. We all watched, but I remember they wrecked it by talking the whole time. How dare they? This was history!

A while back, I was just watching a sitcom, but it was the season finale. I was anxious to see what happened to Dan and Roseanne.

My brother called just as Dan launched into a heart-rending speech about how he wanted to survive his heart attack and live to see his kids grow up. "I'm in the middle of this show," I protested. Mike laughed. "So that's how it is. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I guess I could try to talk and watch at the same time." After all, it was long distance, and we don't get that many calls, but I couldn't bear to miss the show and couldn't set the VCR up fast enough to tape it. So I missed most of Roseanne and a lot of my brother's conversation, too. When we hung up, just as the credits were rolling, I realized I hadn't asked him anything about how he was, just answered his questions and responded to what he said. In between, I was silent, trying to hear what Dan was saying.

I should have either turned off the TV or offered to call my brother back in 15 minutes. But I wasn't willing to sacrifice my show or to be that totally rude.

We have all visited people who were so tied to the tube you wondered if they knew or cared that you were there. Mom and Dad taught us better than that, but the television images are so captivating. The actors are funnier and better-looking than anyone we know, and their lives are far more dramatic.

It's a pickle. If someone else is home, they're bound to answer the phone and hand it to me, so that I have no way to back out. But sometimes when I'm home alone watching a good show, I just let the phone ring. The message center will get it. I have even gone so far as to disconnect all the phones or leave one of the bedroom phones off the hook so I don't have to hear it ring and feel guilty.

Telephones should come equipped with a button that allows you to block out calls for half-hour segments while you watch those special shows. You could use it during sex, too, a whole other tricky situation. But for now, real life will intrude when it's least desired. It has no off button.

In the end, what matters more, knowing what happened to a TV sitcom character or talking to my brother who is calling from 900 miles away to see how I am and tell me he misses me?

It shouldn't be a difficult question, should it?

Sue Fagalde Lick is a former editor of the Saratoga News, now living in Oregon.