A Remote Possibility

Remote controls are the devil.

Something a little fun today. This essay was written for one of my college classes in 2013. It has received a few minor edits for Steemit.

So, what kind of relationship do you have with your remote control?

A REMOTE POSSIBILITY

The evolution of America’s favorite gadget, the remote control, is unparalleled in the annals of human history. A mere 60 years ago the first longinquus gubernare crawled out of the technological muck and sauntered into the living room of modern society, forever changing the way we watch television and open the garage door. Nothing good can come from a species that evolves so fast.

My first remote control was as large as Captain Kirk's console on Star Trek and almost as dangerous. It was "remote" by virtue of a 30-ft cord which ran from the television to wherever I happened to be sitting, and during the holidays some intoxicated relative was always tripping over the cord and yanking the TV off its precarious perch atop a stack of milk crates. It had three rows of buttons which I am convinced would’ve deployed nuclear submarines to Cuba if pressed in the correct sequence. I know for a fact that pressing down three buttons at the same time unlocked the adult channels for free. The images were blurry and crooked, but the imaginative mind of a pubescent teen is undeterred by such issues.

The beast we know today has grown smaller and more intelligent. With elaborate cunning it has managed a scientific miracle. For every evolutionary jump forward the remote control has made, man has regressed in direct proportion. Our society is fatter, lazier, and dumber than it was fifty years ago. I blame it all on this Satanic abomination called the remote control. The remote is bent on world domination through lulling its oppressor to sleep. While we’ve been fast forwarding through the latest KFC commercial, the remote has been plotting our demise.

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past 30 years. The remote control is the icon of a sedentary lifestyle. The reason our children are so fat is because they have yet to find a way to DVR sit-ups and play them back while they sleep. Kids would see their butts married to a polyester sofa before they would walk a hundred yards to watch a gnat eat a John Deere tractor. I’m even willing to bet that many teens today lack the ingenuity to press down three buttons on the remote at the same time in order to get the adult channels for free.

Young people aren’t the only ones that have become a target of the remote control. The average hours worked by adults have been steadily declining since 1960. In a period of 35 years (1964-1999) the average hours spent on the job dropped 11 percent. After all, who has time to work when the remote just issued an alert that Alaskan Bush People will not be recorded because someone else scheduled three conflicting programs?

While the remote control has been getting smarter the average IQ of humanoids peaked in 1950 and has been migrating south ever since. Some claim that the world is getting dumber because smart people are having fewer children. That makes sense. Smart people know that children will attempt to monopolize the remote control.

The evidence is clear. Barring a significant change in our sedentary habits the remote will conquer civilization as surely as the Visigoths dismantled the Roman Empire. In the meantime we can only hope that it will grant us the ability to rewind our cats when they miss the litter box by six inches.