Yesterday I went to the laundry mat because (as is usually the case when I go to the laundry mat) I had a bunch of dirty clothes. Playing on one of the televisions at the laundry mat was a Mexican comedy show. If you know anything about Mexican comedies, you know that they usually implement the following elements:
Adults dressed as children.
Big breasted women whose primary function is in fact to have large breasts.
A total lack of anything funny.
This particular comedy included all three, especially the last two. In fact, I think that typically the number of large breasted women is directly proportionate to the lack of humor in the show.
What blew me away, however, was not the poor quality of the show. It was instead the empty, glazed over stares of those who were watching it. Imagine this look on the faces of 5 people, all sitting in a row:
When I returned home, my roommate was sitting on the couch with the same blank look on his face as he watched Miss Congeniality. Several hours later, after I had written two papers, folded my laundry, and cleaned my room, I went back into the living room to find my roommate in the same exact place, with the same look on his face, only this time he was watching The Matrix. I'm not sure if he even noticed that the movie had changed, he was just meeting his daily quota of mindlessly absorbing at least 4 hours of worthless media.
It makes me wonder, what are we doing with our lives? Are we okay with our daily routines; eating, sleeping, watching TV? When was the last time we learned something new? What was the last good, educational book we read (besides the latest Anna Nicole Smith biography)? When was the last time our world view was affected by exposure to new ideas?
Last night I decided I didn't want to waste my life sitting in a laundry mat, filling my head with mind-numbing nothingness.
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