Clicker Torture

Is there a treatment program for clicker addiction?

We just got back from a vacation and my poor daughter is shell-shocked. Yes, she's only ten, but apparently some revelations hit early.

We go away each year the week before Thanksgiving (TDH and I reward ourselves for making it through another round of soccer without strangling coaches, children or each other).

We eat tons of junk food, relax in the hot tub and even go to the movies. So for the kids, it's kind of like we left their mother at home (the one who limits TV, sweets, and monitors bedtime—in our rental house, there was a TV in every bedroom.)

Around our second day I heard my daughter protesting quite loudly (apparently you do bring some things on vacation you'd have rather left at home) from the bedroom. I went to investigate—it is the mother's job to keep everyone on harmonious vacation bliss.

It appears that her brother had the remote control (yes, another male joins the ranks). While I calmly explained to her that it is an incurable madness, this frenzied clicking between programs with a bored look on one's face, we were fortunate that it is not contagious, nor an affliction that our gender will ever have to suffer through. At which time she reminded me that she was suffering.

Ah, yes, the torture of sitting beside a male with a clicker.

It wasn't but a night or two later that she and I happened to catch about a third of a program (between other commercials) regarding a man with a perplexing array of ailments, none of which the doctors had been able to diagnose. As the story seemed to be getting closer to its gripping conclusion, we did finally send the children to bed.

After herding them through brushing their teeth and the "I'll die if I don't get a glass of water" vocalizations, I hurried back to the living room. Of course, there was another program on the TV. I asked TDH what happened to the man. What did the doctors find out?

TDH replied, eyes never leaving the TV, his voice telling me he was in the clicker zone, "I don't know. When I turned back, it was over."

Breathe deeply, I tell myself. This man is the father of your children. And then I slumped down on the couch as the realization hit. The father of three males. Males who, undoubtedly, would grow up with a remote growing between their fingers.

Not one minute later, Brielle hollered from her bedroom, "What happened with that man?"

I trudged toward her room trying to find the words that wouldn't dent her daddy's armor too much. An evil wayward thought crossed my mind. I could tell her about credit cards and the beauty of clicker revenge.

Lower your eyebrows! Of course I dismissed that delicious thought. We are all about fiscal (and marital) responsibility. Though it was fun to think about parading our purchases while he's in the zone. . .