A Cowboy Watches Television

Perhaps it's because he grew up without a television. Back in the day, there was no satellite television, and so there was no opportunity to watch television on the ranch. I'm still occasionally amazed at the blank look I receive when I mention some cultural reference from our growing up years, that #1 did not experience.

#1 had a television down here at some point, but the only thing is was connected to was a Beta Max (that was the thing before a VCR, right?) and later a VCR, so they could watch movies. Before there was a movie rental place in town, they had to buy movies, which they then watched over and over. And over. And over. After a movie rental place opened in town, there was an occasional movie rental, but since the rental place was about 70 miles round trip from the ranch, late fees were more frequent than actual rentals.

When I started coming down to the ranch, I used to set my own VCR in town to record my favorite shows, then bring them down to watch with #1 and C.G. And then I introduced them to satellite television. And now, we have about a million channels.

Some of the ranch hands, off and on, have had satellite television at their houses as well, since C.G. first installed it. #1 used to make fun of a particular ranch hand's wife, no longer here, who was kind of deaf, and at all times of the day or night, you would walk past her house to hear the television blaring, almost always on the Lifetime channel, whose tagline is "Television for Women." And #1 and I would laugh about the ranch hand getting sucked in to his wife's movies.
Still, sometimes, I am amazed at #1's choice in movies. For example, many, many times, I have come out into the living room to find him watching silly movies. Silly movies like Spice World. I swear he watches that every single time he comes across it. I'm not joking. Santa even gave him a copy for Christmas. I believe Santa found it on clearance somewhere, for about $2. So I heard.

Today, I don't know what I was doing, but I wasn't in the living room. I walked in, and noticed he was watching a movie. I also noticed the little logo in the corner:
"What are you watching, hon?" I asked.

His face turned a little red.

"What's the name of this movie?" I asked again.

"Crap!" #1 said. "I didn't want you to see the channel."

"I already saw the logo in the corner," I laughed.

For those of you who may not know, LMN stands for: Lifetime Movie Network. Yes, that's right, I said "Lifetime." You know, an offshoot of the Lifetime channel. Need I remind you, it's Lifetime, Television for Women??

"Crap!!" His face reddened more. He pushed the Info button on the remote. The movie was called On The 2nd Day of Christmas.

In case you don't believe me about these movies he watches, and for some reason don't want to follow the link I just posted, or maybe you think he only watches Cowboy movies or Action movies or even Adventure movies, here's the plot synopsis from The Internet Movie Database:

"Con-woman Trish and her niece/ward Patsy are caught trying to steal from a department store right before Christmas. With the holidays so near, Bert, a store employee, agrees to be responsible for the pair so that Patsy need not spend the holidays in social services. Romance ensues."

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww. How sweet. I think that one's right up there with Spice World. Now I think he simply Must agree to watch The Notebook with me, don't you?