CALL ME SNAKE

On the subject of TV viewing, I've been nothing if not consistent: I do not watch TV. That has been my mantra. That has been my party line. And for the most part, it's been true. But I can no longer, in good conscience, call myself a non-TV watcher. For me, the tipoff came last night when my wife mentioned something while the TV was on, and I said: “Can you tell me later? I’m trying to catch this ad...” I immediately realized what I'd said and with it came an even greater realization--namely that I had been living a lie. So I'd now like to set the record straight: I do watch TV. Rarely, of course. And only when I'm doing other things -- like the dishes, putting away Tinker Toys, reading the paper, paying bills, and other mindless tasks to go alongside the mindless pablum served up on the screen. But watch I do, if only out of the corner of my eye, while talking on the phone and attending to my sudoku backlog.

Now that I've publicly outed myself, will I go from being a closeted, occasional TV watcher to a full-throttle, channel-surfing addict? I can't really say. But I can tell you this: I tried like the devil to watch last night's Barbara Walters special on "Heaven and How to Get There." And I would have gone to Heaven if I could. It was not for lack of trying, but I couldn't find the damn remote. So I stayed here in my personal hell instead. Or maybe it was limbo or whatever it is they call the place where my couch is now located.