Phillies Baseball, America's Next Top Lunatic, Real Housewives and Surviving "The Look of Death"

Chooch ponders life after baseball; photo by Nigel Barker

Along with sweatpants and Raisinettes, the remote control is one of the greatest inventions in history of western civilization. But when used improperly, it can cause more carnage than most Eastern European warfare. And after my wife unleashed her vaunted "look of death" at me last night for my misuse of the clicker, I question whether or not I should be left with such a responsibility.

Now I know what you're thinking; we're a stereotypical Timothy Busfield thirtysomething couple and I hogged the remote and sat and drank my beer and wouldn't let my wife disturb the precious game. Nope, not the case. Not the case at all. Let me explain.

At the start of the Phillies game, my wife asked if we could flip to something else during commercials, to which I obviously agreed, because I like watching other things and am not interested in having my wife divorce me. So in between innings we watched some of America's Next Top Lunatic, and this was fine, because I sort of like that show and would like my wife to stay with me so that I don't end up homeless and alone like I imagine Timothy Busfield must be.

I even let her watch a full, uninterrupted ten minutes of her favorite part of the show when Tyra Banks and the good looking British photographer critique the lunatics' photos. Last night they had a big black dude join them who wore a cape. He was filling in for the other black dude who is actually more of a lady and teaches the lunatics how to walk. I'm not sure where the man-lady was last night, but I miss him dearly and imagine wherever he is, he is probably also wearing a cape. When we got back to the baseball game, I had missed the Giants score two runs, but this was okay because I love my wife and was very interested to hear the cape-donning judge's thoughts regarding the lunatics' photo shoot.

I imagine he/she also has a "look of death."

Later, during the nine o'clock hour, we routinely flipped to see what the Real Housewives of Atlanta were up to. Apparently, the "Don't Be Tardy For The Party" lady is now performing her self-titled song live in concert for thousands of gay men, for which I also allowed my wife ten minutes of uninterrupted viewing pleasure. This time when we returned to the Phils, Shane Victorino was chasing balls in the dirt, precisely the same thing most of the gay concert-goers were doing.

(Oh! ... He breaks out a gay joke!)

Now, here's where the problem arose:  during the late stages of the game, I started flipping to an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about the relationship of two former Yugoslavian basketball players whose lives and friendship were torn apart by their warring homelands (one was Serbian, the other Croatian). It's a gripping movie and features the enormously lovable Vlade Divac who goes back to his hometown in Serbia and looks through old shoeboxes of photos rehashing memories of playing basketball with his old friend, Drazen Petrovic.

Now up until this point, any time that I wanted to flip back to the Phils, my wife allowed me to do so. She understood that I deeply cared about my squad and conceded that what she was watching was absolute garbage. My wife is a rational person. She wears age appropriate clothing. She realized that her programs were for commercials, but tonight's game was the main event. But this time when I tried to change the channel back to the Phillies, my wife got angry.

"No! You can't go back to the game. Not now," she said.

 "What?"

"Not now, put it back."

"What? Why not, Dar? The Phillies are batting."

"You can't put that on and then turn it off, because that's real stuff and I'm into it and you can't do that."

This woman is NOT normally this attractive.

Now in her defense, she had stated each time during the last few commercial breaks that we shouldn't watch the ESPN documentary now, because we would get hooked. She maintained that we should watch it when we had time to actually realllllly watch it and could sit and take it all in. I agreed and understood what she was saying, but there were SO MANY commercial breaks because it was the time of the game when there are like, four pitching changes every inning, so I still flipped to it during every break. And besides, they were showing old footage of Petro draining threes on hairy European dudes and I couldn't deny myself from seeing that!!!

But now they were showing footage of dead bodies and wartime in the former Yugoslavia and meanwhile Carlos Ruiz was batting and the Phils were threatening. My wife wanted to watch a sports documentary and I was keeping her from doing so, probably the first and last time that will ever happen. That's when she unleashed her "look of death;" a look that only Serbian soldiers and female African American school teachers can give, and I changed the channel, threw her the remote and sprinted up the steps like an overtired six-year-old to watch the two-inch tall Ruiz in our upstairs bedroom on our microwave-television.

Over the next four minutes, I sat at the end of our bed, yelling down to her every sixteen seconds to see if the game was on yet (knowing she'd put it back on as soon as the documentary went to a commercial). She ignored me every time. I eventually settled into my new space, watched Mini-Chooch strike out and just as I got comfortable she notified me that the game was back on the big TV in the living room.

Ye Ole Microwave-TV ... you can still find 'em!

When I got back downstairs, everything was all good. We had had a slight disagreement, she unleashed her crazy eyes, and I had to watch miniature men play baseball for about five minutes.

If the remote had never been invented, I probably wouldn't have received the wrath of Kahn, but then again I wouldn't have seen a black guy in a cape either; and that's just straight gangsta.