You’re As Young As You Feel

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Wednesday - November 14, 2007

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As the old saying goes, “a man’s home is his castle.” Well, not if kids are around. I have found that what we watch on television in my home is pretty much dictated by the youngest person in the house. Most of the time, that’s our 10-year-old daughter.

Even though we have nearly a million TV sets in our house, the main viewing television with the HD digital box and DVR hookup is always tuned to the channel our daughter wants to watch. Yeah, I could demand to watch my shows, but Daddy’s girl always has her way with me.

That means I’m watching Hannah Montana 24/7 on the Disney channel. It wouldn’t be so bad except that Billy Ray Cyrus stars as Hannah’s father, and every time I see him on the screen, Achy Breaky Heart plays in my head and I start to line dance.

Recently however, I’ve had some variety as my 6-year-old twin nephews have been coming over and commandeering the television to watch Nickelodeon Gas, a channel that runs reruns of Nickelodeon kid’s game shows from the ‘80s. In particular, Legends of the Hidden Temple.

We used to watch that with our son when he was that age, so at first it was amusing. After seeing the exact same show for the 100th time, it started to get annoying. In this case I can’t change the channel because one of the twins will go into a tantrum that makes Rosie O’Donnell look like Mother Teresa. Sorry about that comparison, Lord.

Well, last week my brother-in-law flew in from the Mainland with his wife and their 2-year-old daughter. Her now being the youngest person in the house meant that we were all relegated to watching Elmo and Barney the Purple Dinosaur on my TV. Now I was throwing a tantrum.

My wife said I was acting like a baby, which then technically qualified me as the youngest person in the house. The television immediately got switched to football - to the delight of my two brothers-in-law. My wife then argued that we were not the youngest in the house and the TV should be switched back for our 2-year-old niece.

I explained that chronologically she was right, but if you compared the IQ of a 2-year-old watching Barney versus the combined IQ of three men watching Sunday Night Football, it would be a toss up. She said, “I can’t argue with that,” and the game played on.