I haven’t been paying close attention to this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which is apparently the worst year ever to have ignored the event because it’s been a chaotic whirlwind of upsets.
I used to be a tournament junkie, but when I spend many evenings and weekends doing Banner-related paperwork, the TV becomes background noise. And the background noise of televised sporting events makes me feel sleepy and irritable.
I spent a lot of time tossing and turning one night, trying to figure out why this is and I came up with the following hypothesis: lack of cable TV as a child.
We had access to only four channels much of my childhood. Saturday mornings were joy-filled extravaganzas of cereal and cartoons, but then we’d hit that midday mark where our only viewing options were football, golf or auto racing. Around 1 p.m. – belly full from lunch, Circadian rhythms kicking in, library books for the weekend already read – 5-year-old me would flop down on the carpet in the living room, awash in the bored misery of the hours stretching ahead with nothing on TV and nothing to do. That whiny restlessness would eventually give way to a nap on the floor, scarring me for life to the point where, when I hear golf claps on TV even today, my brain reacts with the scent of carpet fibers.
But it’s still a joy to hear the hubby listen and react and holler from the den, occasionally calling me in to watch a replay, and we still love hearty food even when we’re not both watching. This quick take on boneless ribs was a huge hit with the whole family – followed by naps in our beds, not on the floor.
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