somnambulant

The TV Is on,  some loud, flashy game show is on, smilar to “The Price is Right”. 

She asks,
“I don’t like these sort of shows. Do you?” 
“No,” I reply.
“You do?!”
“No, not at all. Change the channel if you want.” I hope with all my might that she will change it so I don’t have to look at the stupid screen anymore.
(She doesn’t hear me, I try rephrasing it)
“There’s also France 2…” (Another news channel in France.)
“Oh, there are other channels! Yes.”

We sit there watching it, she exclaims about the prize. “It’s from Morocco!”
I sit there, fuming.

After we’ve eaten, we put the dishes in the dishwasher, there to stay for a few weeks until it fills up. Whenever I wash some dishes she says, “Hadas, there’s a dishwasher, you know.” The way I see it, when the only thing I eat for breakfast is cereal, the bowl is easy enough to clean. 
I suggest a game of Chromino which is like Dominoes but with colors. Fun to play after dinner with a cup of tea and all her hilarious little French remarks. “À toi!” “Oh non, je ne peux pas. Je ne peux pas!” “Pioche!” “On est bloqué là!” “Voilà. Voilà!” (Yes, she loves repeating things.)

We sit back down on the couch and the TV is now playing a sitcom that neither of us ever pays attention to. 
I take a deep breath before proposing to turn it off.
“Can we listen to France Classique instead?” (French classical music radio station)
She pauses. “No.”
“Oh, but don’t you have radio on the TV? You listened to it a few days ago.”
“In your room you can listen it.”
“Yeah, but… the radio—”
“When I get home after ten hours of work I like to watch the news, you know? It’s relaxing, it allows me to empty my head.”
“Yeah, but music can do that too sometimes.”
“True, but after a long day of work I like to watch TV, you understand? And there’s the Mitterand…uh, not Mitterand, the François Holland conference tonight that I wanted to watch.
“Okay.”
“It is how I like to end my day. And with classical music, I like it…but sometimes it’s sad, and nostalgic. At night, I don’t like that. It makes me sad.” 
“There’s a lot of classical music that’s happy, though.”
“Oh I’m sure. During daytime I’d say sure, but now it’s nighttime. You can listen to it in your room.”
“Yeah, I do. Every morning.” 

We continue playing Chromino. The television has now moved on to the nightly weather report.
“Oh, it’s going to be cold tomorrow!”

—

What is it with people needing the television at night? Don’t get me wrong, I’m as bad as it gets when it comes to being addicted to the screen…but mine’s a computer screen. For some reason, that seems so much more rewarding than staring at the television for hours without even listening to it. I think it actually comforts her to have it in the background for every waking minute, but to me, it’s a constant disturbance. Silence is preferable. But I’m not about to delve into that topic with her.