It’s like gray hairs, really. I keep finding signs that my little dudes are growing up and aren’t so little of dudes any more. The latest little blow to my mortality concerns my oldest little dude, Sarcasmo. It’s the TV choices he makes, you see. He’s — *sob* — given up cartoons.
I know. I know. I can’t believe it either. The little dude who had to be pried away from Cartoon Network when he was younger has completely abandoned it, along with Nickelodeon, and left them in the dust.
Now, it seems, he’s all hot for adult fare. He loves to watch Law & Order: Criminal Intent, NCIS, Bones and House. Police procedurals and medical shows and stand-up comedians from Comedy Central are filling up the TV time for Sarcasmo; he who would never miss an episode of Pokémon. It’s enough to make the TV remote wilt in my hand. Well, it would be if it weren’t so busy being stroked and loved by me. Was that a Freudean slip? Probably so. No. No. I mean, probably not. (Whew! That was close. I don’t think they noticed.)
I should have seen this coming. Really. For the last year or so, more often than not, when we’re all watching a cartoon show on the good TV downstairs, Sarcasmo will watch for a while and then quietly disappear upstairs to read a book. That’s been happening more and more often and I barely noticed. Mostly because, when I watch cartoons, I still get as mesmerized now as I did when I was eight. Well, for some cartoons, anyway. There are still a lot of them on that are just too strange for an old guy like me.
The good thing about Sarcasmo’s tastes aging up is that, on occasion, we’ll actually start to watch the same show. Then it’s nice to talk about some of the issues that we’ve seen on, say, TNT’s Leverage, a great show about corporate greed and malfeasence. It actually gives us the occasional nice teaching moment.
Still, I’m not really sure if those teaching moments are worth it. Maybe not for me, but I think it’s probably good for him. After all, I don’t think he’d like to be the only kid in his college dorm to make sure he’s got to be home early so he can watch Dora the Explorer.
– Richard
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