A little thing called courtesy...

Did your parents ever come out of their room at night and yell at you "Turn down the TV!!!" If not, then your childhood was lacking, because mine sure did. And I learned: if you want to watch TV after bedtime, you better have that volume so low that you have to hold your breath just to hear the words.

Fast forward to today: I don't watch TV. At all. To me it's simply a waste of time. But my family ... boy, they LOVE their TV. Mom watches Soap Operas, sister watches Disney channel, brother watches MTV and dad watches ESPN and movies.

Whatever, I just tune them out with my ear phones. But know when you can't tune them out: WHEN TRYING TO SLEEP.

It's been an ongoing battle between me and ... well, the whole house: I try to get to sleep around 11:00pm, and my dad watches the TV with the volume turned up VERY high. And since my room and the TV are seperated by just as small wall, I'm the only one ffected by the constant sound.

No matter how many times I'll ask, the TV never gets any quieter.

So, what are the lessons to be learned:

*if you want to watch TV late at night, have respect for those who wish to get a semi-healthy amount of sleep.

*keep the volume low, no need to kill your hearing even further.

*if half the household is asleep, and you're watching basketball, there is NO NEED to shout "Oh!' every time the ball almost goes into the basket. I guarantee you it's going to happen a lot, just save the energy.

*Yes, Forest Gump is a great movie. No, you don't need to watch it at 1:00am just because it came on TV. I bought you the friggin' thing for Father's Day, watch it at a decent hour.

*machine guns sound cool ... except for at midnight.

*commentators on ESPN don't say anything that you don't know already. If you want to hear guys say "And now he has the ball ... he passes the ball ... he shoots!" ect., go in your room and listen to it on the radio.

*ESPN has this cool thing called "high lights". They show the same ones from 6:00am - 4:00pm everyday. You don't need to keep falling asleep trying to watch it until 2:00am just so you can see the end of the game ... it'll be on replay all day tomorrow.

*One word: VCR. They still make those for a reason.

P.S. Yes, I am ticked off right now.