Television Tango

Right now I'm sitting in my dad's livingroom with a giant, foreboding HD Flatscreen TV blaring in my ear. The noise drowns out and mutes the voices of my little daughter and son. I can't hear them bickering nor can I distinguished their laughter. Any attempt at interaction with someone in this room is futile. When I try to get my dad's attention his eyes flick momentarily from the hypnotic swinging pendulum of flashy images making eye contact, only to return quickly to the screen, while I am still in midsentence. Trumped by television. Numbed by the droning. The content running across the screen, It could be an ad for a george foreman grill or COPS. Whatever is on the screen seems to neutralize emotion and motivation. I suppose that is somewhat understandable. When the TV gets shut of its kind of depressing to think that you really don't know very much about the people sitting next to you. That warm cozy sense of security that one gains from intense, pervasive relationships is missing when the screen goes off, replace by a slight uneasiness-A fear of a long awkward pause.