Following up on a request from an avid viewer of this blog, here are my remotes. It takes an intricate medley of commands from three separate remotes to operate my television. A fourth if I want to use the DVD player. A quick survey of the rest of the house reveals that I also have a remote for my radio (which has to have a remote since it comes with no controls on the radio itself and now I live in fear of losing all control over the device since my dog ate the second remote). Also, amazingly, I have a remote for my bed which is not intended to be used remotely at all since I have to activate it while I am...lying on the bed.
There are about 335 million TV remotes in our country, which works out to about 3 per home. Novelist Saul Bellow noticed how the remote tends to promote frequent changes to the television screen and declared that the device, “makes mental mincemeat of us.” Read more about the history of this frustrating yet couldn't-live-without-it possession in this wonderful New York Times article.
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