February 21, 2018 Article

The Old Coot tosses the remote.

By Merlin Lessler

I started a new exercise program the other day. I call it Remoteless Aerobics. Watching TV without using a remote. It’s a term so new, my spellchecker said there is no such word as “remoteless.” Anyhow, word or not, going remoteless was harder than I thought. First of all, I couldn’t find the controls on the TV set. I had to get a flashlight and scour the perimeter of the box. There, on the right-hand side, were buttons so small and indistinct I could hardly see them. I went to the kitchen and got my reading glasses, so I could see which button to push. I pushed a button with a circle and a slash next to it. The TV came on, just a lucky guess on my part. Then I pushed the channel button, adjusted the volume and walked 5 paces across the room and sat down to watch, “The Price is Right,” a show where I never know the right price.

The furnace came on, drowning out the sound. I got up and scurried across the room to turn up the volume. A few minutes later, I was on the move again; the furnace turned off and now the sound was blasting. It took two trips. I had to go back and get my glasses because I couldn’t see which button to push. Mind you, these buttons are the size of a period at the end of a sentence. Hardly visible at all. Up down, up down, so it went. I checked my Fitbit at the end of the show; I was well on my way to 10,000 steps, a goal selected by the device, not me. It gave me credit for two stair climbs too. I guess stepping up off the couch so often was the equivalent of climbing the stairs twice. Cool!

If I keep this up and remove some other “make life easier” devices from my routine, I’ll be in good shape in no time. I wonder if you can still buy a car where you use arm power to roll down the window. It might offset using the power window to be handed a Big Mac and fries at a McDonalds take out window, avoiding the apparently, too strenuous effort of getting out of the car and walking to the counter. Life has changed since I joined the human race. So has the average human waistline. We don’t move! Not much anyhow. We don’t push a lawn mower, it pulls us long. We don’t pull a rake, we blow the leaves away with a leaf blower. We don’t pull up a garage door, we push a button. Shovel snow with a shovel? Are you nuts! Not anymore.

Pretty soon we won’t be wrestling with a steering wheel or pressing the brake. A computer and a bunch of servo mechanisms will handle that for us. All we’ll do is sit there. Something we’re good at. We don’t open a dictionary or an encyclopedia, we go to our phone and tap the screen and keyboard. Some people find even that effort too arduous; they just yell into their phone or ask Alexa to get them the answer. Evolution will kick in eventually. Two thousand years from now we’ll just be heads floating in jars. I wonder if we’ll have enough facial muscles to smile?

Comments? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com