After TV, the Deluge

This week, the good citizens of Toledo, Ohio, huddle in small groups in their living rooms and cast mutinous glances at their television sets. In bitter whispers, they account past sacrifices to the squat, pudgy object which stares back blankly out of its glassy eye. It was supposed to reunite the American family, revitalize the entertainment business, succor the optical industry. For these boons, people were quite willing, when the set took up residence, to shift their furniture and remodel their draperies to give it a fit setting. And they suffered through telecrane (a stiffness of the muscles of the neck) and telesquint (an eye disorder) with hardly a grumble. But the limits of silent suffering have been reached. For television has changed the private habits of Toledo.

Civic sanitation officials have noticed a sudden strange behavior in the civic rate of water use. During television shows, almost no water is used. Every half hour, synchronized with the commercials, there is a sudden surge in the amount of water needed. During a recent boxing match, the demand curve dropped 48 percent. Every three minutes, there was a share rise; after the decision, a veritable flood. On this data, Toledo engineers have fashioned a rating of Program Popularity through Pumpage and Pressure (Toledo newspapers call it a P-rating) that is as accurate as any Hooper.

Needless to say, we look with fear upon this news from the Midwest. It is not enough for television to change mealtimes, stific conversation, and make exercise obsolete. It threatens the superiority of nature over her own processes. If the good burghers of Toledo see fit to smash every flickering monster they find, we would not mind. For the relentless march of the TV sets must be stopped, lest our most cherished rights of personal choice fall before it.