Busted
In the American justice system, we are all innocent until proven guilty. In the marriage justice system, husbands are guilty until proven innocent. Even when we prove our innocence, we still reek of guilt because it seems to be our nature. My case in point occurred in our living room, one of the few places I thought I had protected comfort from marital scrutiny.
In our house we have several televisions, and the main and largest one resides in our living room. That is the prefered viewing unit and the one I predominantly use unless bumped off by the Nagasawa TV-viewing hierarchy. In that hierarchy, I outrank everyone except for our 17-year-old daughter. For whatever reason, she has control over the TV.
I can work with that, because her TV attention span is measured in minutes. She might start watching something, and the next thing I know, she is texting someone on her phone. That’s when I’ll change the channel to something I want to watch. But the way our game is played is that, if I leave the room for even a minute, she’ll change the channel back to something of her liking.
The other evening, I was watching a historic documentary and left to go use the bathroom. When I returned, unbeknownst to me, our daughter had changed the channel and then left the room. I sat on my chair and re-engaged the television screen. By the time I realized what I was watching, my wife came into the room. Apparently, my daughter tuned in to a show on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit models. They were shooting photos in unusual locations.
It just so happened they were taking a flight that simulated weightlessness with SI model Kate Upton in a swimsuit. This is what my wife saw when she walked in: Kate Upton plus a tiny bikini plus zero gravity. You do the visual math. She looked at me and said, “What the heck are you watching?” I quickly explained that our daughter changed the channel.
My wife shook her head saying, “So that’s what you’re going with?” There was nothing I could say that could bail me out, including the truth.
Since I already was blamed for it, I figured I might as well finish watching the show. That’s when my mom walked in, and then I really had to change the channel.
rnagasawa@midweek.com
