idiot box

The “idiot box” was considered a wasteland if not a scourge.

For those of us who’ve watched TV grow from the unfairly derided “idiot box” to become the preeminent art form of the 21st century, such a development seems at once completely absurd and tragically inevitable.

All those services — all those shows — and when we plop down in front of the idiot box it still takes us 20 minutes to decide what to watch.

And there I was at home on our hand-me-down couch with a tiny Sally nestled in the crook of one arm while I stared at the palm-sized idiot box cradled in my other hand.

Kids were already parked in front of the “idiot box” for hours and absorbing everything they saw, so why not numbers and letters, too?