Disorganized modern household

Peter and I both have some vague, hazy recollection of having noted the arrival of a bill for cable TV and discussing which of us would pay it, although we can’t remember now how many months ago that might have been and which decision we really reached at the time about which of us would pay it.
Apparently neither of us did.

Recently it seems that someone had the bright idea of trying to watch one of the EURO 08 games on TV, but the TV didn’t seem to be working. This was by no means a crisis, since watching the EURO 08 games is far more entertaining outdoors at an art center on a big screen with lots of other interesting people. In this way, however, we have meanwhile realized that the cable provider must have turned off the connection, presumably because we didn’t pay the bill. No one has the slightest idea how many months ago that might have happened. Television is clearly obsolete.

When we first moved into this flat and were presented with the option of cable TV and radio from the start, we hesitated slightly because of the expense, but then decided to go along with the rest of the house and get it. We thought it might be more interesting to be able to get BBC on the radio and perhaps even occasionally films in the original language, rather than just the dull films dubbed in German on Austrian television. When the boys were little and their time in front of the television was strictly limited to a total of two hours – with breaks in between – on Saturday and Sunday mornings (so that their parents could stay in bed and read in peace), it was in fact an advantage that they could choose from programs in English on BBC and Cartoon Network (for which reason they still remember the “Bodger and Badger” theme song and the death of Princess Diana that interrupted their favorite Saturday morning programs and brought all the adults running to watch the news instead of fixing the problem).

I don’t recall that we ever made much use of cable radio, however. For most of the boys’ school career, our early mornings were structured by the rhythm of the Austrian Ö1 morning program, and they needed to be out the door by the time the 7:00 headlines finished. Then at some point the radio stopped working. I wanted to surprise Peter at Christmas (which Christmas?) by replacing it, but it was not possible to buy a single radio component that didn’t cost more than all the stereo components together. At some point – I think it might have been last summer – Christopher was assigned the task of taking down all the components from the shelf where they are stacked, so that they could be cleaned and rearranged and reconnected, and I could take the radio component to be repaired at a shop where the nice technicians assured me they could do that. This has not yet happened. The radio has not been heard in our household for many moons, and the boys leave later every day for school.

Does it matter? The boys getting to school late every day might conceivably become a problem – or it might just be a family tradition, since I don’t think their father ever arrived punctually at school (or anywhere else for that matter) in his life. Although I miss the rhythm of the morning radio program, which was more soothing than my exasperated scolding now, we all get the news we are interested in from the newspaper and magazines – and the computer. We all get the music we like from CDs – and the computer. We all watch what we are interested in, at times when it is convenient, on DVDs – and the computer.

So with a household full of computers, why would we still need radio and television?

Obviously, Peter and I still need to look for this bill and pay it, because just losing it is not really very responsible, but on the whole, I think this is one household expense we could probably do without. The more uncomfortable question this raises, though, is what else we might have “lost”.

The problem is that there is a black hole at the end of our kitchen counter. As often as I have complained about things being left on the end of the kitchen counter, I am clearly outnumbered and lacking something like solidarity, or at least sympathy for the problem. This black hole at the end of the kitchen counter sucks into itself anything flat: Linux magazines, notices about “frequent flyer” miles and special offers, theater announcements, invitations to exhibition openings, the newspaper from the Green Party (always two copies), the newspaper from the Austrian Communist Party (three copies), announcements from the Young Socialists (indeterminate number), school communications, miscellaneous advertising brochures, superfluous flyers – and bills. And probably any number of other vital papers that I am not aware of.

So, basically, while we are well equipped with the most modern means to meet all media needs for communication, information and entertainment, this household is otherwise appallingly, disgracefully disorganized, and somebody needs to do something about it.

Somebody … somebody … somebody …