MY View

BY JOHN McLOONE

This is no game

I’m going to reveal one of my innermost secrets for you folks right now. This is something that I think makes me a rare breed.

Here it is: I hate game shows.

I don’t like Jeopardy. I can’t stand Wheel of Fortune. I don’t even like Family Feud, even when someone gives a really dumb answer.

I don’t know what I attribute it to. I don’t watch a tremendous amount of television as it is, but when I do, I prefer not to be wasting it on this kind of garbage.

I know I’m in the minority with this opinion. When you walk into any restaurant or sports bar at 6:30 p.m., the patrons are always glued to the TV, trying to solve the puzzle after Vanna spins the wheel.

I think it all dates back to my childhood. It was otherwise a very pleasurable period of my life, but if you remember the “Dark Ages” of television, all there really was on TV was game shows, soap operas and Sesame Street. Later in the day, Gilligan’s Island and The Beverly Hillbillies brightened things up a bit.

I think it’s all rooted in my somewhat lack of patience. I also don’t really like playing any kind of games, in general. My wife loves when the kids are home, because they’ll participate in all kinds of activities with her. Apparently, she doesn’t enjoy watching me read in the evenings as much as she appears to. She loves games. She loves playing cards and all kinds of things like that. I went through a phase early in our marriage where I would participate in Scrabble sessions with her. I wasn’t very good at it, and she was a pro. The kids came along, and I gladly volunteered to change diapers so I wouldn’t have to play another board game. Maybe I didn’t volunteer, but when we had four kids under five years old, I was kind of forced into it. And I will say that if given the choice of playing cards or changing diapers, I might pick the latter. And the kids were a big reason I was able to escape from the gaming table. When family would gather, one of us had to watch the kids. I watched a lot of Barney in my younger years instead of learning how to play Sheepshead. Years and years of it perhaps have molded me into the person I am today.

There’s a scene in the gangster show “The Sopranos.” A character is shot and goes briefly to “the other side.” He comes back and tells his cohorts that he was reunited with his father. In the afterlife, he’s relegated to an Irish bar and every day is St. Patrick’s Day. Then, at midnight, he gets shot. I fear that I’ll be parked on a stool in a sports bar, watching the Game Show Channel.

That’s why when I’m home alone, the TV is generally off, for fear that I may turn it on, and some sort of game show will be playing. I’ll take peace and quiet over the sound that wheel makes when it’s spinning any day.