Static on TV

I took some vacation time for no particular reason this week, so I've been holed up at home, living the life of an eccentric hermit while my wife is on a family trip. My only contact with the outside world for days has been fast-food forays, Facebook commentary and occasional sedative doses of TV.

This morning something odd happened: a whole bunch of cable channels all locked up at once. I found myself surfing channel after channel of static images. A televangelist, his reverent gaze frozen heavenward. A news anchor, caught in a mid-sentence facial contortion. A missile, poised halfway out of the launch tube. One channel was stuck on a "Viewer Discretion" notice for nudity and coarse language that never came.

To my still-half-asleep self, the effect was eerie. Had my little bedroom television indeed frozen time, like the stopwatch in that old Twilight Zone episode? It was all I could do not to get up and look out the window, to make sure the trees were still swaying with the wind.

I really need to get out more.