May 28, 2013 3 min read

I was sitting at a car dealership, waiting for them to charge $426 to replace the $69 part that had failed. Some things I accept: When you jump on the bandwagon, your team starts to lose; automobile parts fail just after the warranty has expired.

Other things, I find hard to fathom. For example, by 8 a.m. four others had joined me in the customer lounge. Three of us had brought along books to help pass the time. Another was exercising her thumbs on a cellphone. The last was staring into space, just as the pioneers must have done while waiting for the wagonmaster to install a new ox to replace the one that had died just outside St. Louis – one day after the warranty had expired. The TV in the lounge was on at low volume, tuned to a morning news show.

Then the newest member of our club waltzed in, rotated her head like the Owl Man from Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium at the 1939 World’s Fair and asked, loudly: “Anyone care if I change the channel?” Since we all were ignoring the TV anyway, no one spoke up. That was our first mistake.

So she changed the channel to the morning show hosted by a petite blonde dame and a big black guy. Last time I watched morning TV, this show had been hosted by Kathie Lee Gifford and Regis Philbin. I knew the petite blonde dame wasn’t Gifford, but I thought that – me being out of the loop for many years – the big black guy might possibly be Philbin after he pulled a reverse Michael Jackson. But that’s not important.

What is important is that the newest club member not only changed the channel but also turned up the volume. Then she sat down, picked up a magazine … and ignored the TV.

Now, I have no problem with her ignoring the TV. After all, we were. But I’m still trying to figure out exactly why it was important for her to ignore a particular show. And to ignore it at high volume. Was it her tacit protest against the petite blonde dame and the big black guy? Did she want to make sure that the rest of us could hear in the hope that we would leap up and shout, “This is a terrible show! We join you to ignore it, and ignore it loudly! Oh … thank you, thank you, nameless woman, for opening our eyes to the horror being wrought on morning TV by petite blonde dames and big black guys!”

But no one leapt up. No one looked askance when Ms. Ignore-the-TV began sighing heavily and flipping through magazines noisily. No one so much as glanced at her when she started to sneeze every 90 seconds, punctuated each time by, “Guess I caught a bug!” That was our second mistake.

One of us should have jumped up and screamed, “How dare you ignore me ignoring you!”

We didn’t. We sat there, tolerant wimps.

But later that night, we regretted our lack of action. We slumped before our TVs, seething, until we dozed off.

Then, drooling and twitching on the couch, we had horrible visions of petite blonde dames and big black guys hosting talk shows, laughing at us as we fought in vain to ignore them.