My department holds meetings every Thursday morning, and at the beginning of every meeting, my team lead asks me and the rest of the team a question for an icebreaker to ease the tension (or try to). She asked what TV show is our comfort food, and the question was difficult because I don’t watch TV. I haven’t for decades except for NFL football, and the season lasts for only about five months out of every year. I don’t watch any programming anymore other than that because it influences me negatively. So I struggled for an answer, but I heard the other team members.

One of them, a grown man, brought up an anime series. Someone should eventually grow out of anime if there’s an appropriate age for that. But now that I look back, my college roommate watched it as well. I’d never heard about anime until he entered my life when I was twenty years old. Nothing against him or my coworker (he’s a nice guy)(they’re both nice guys), but why do people enjoy that stuff? I never understood it. The animation is poor, and I don’t get what’s going on. It reminds me of those old Speed Racer cartoons, where the characters remained still while their lips moved when they were talking.

When it was my turn, I gave them a somewhat honest answer, even though I lied. I said NFL football, which was true, and felt judged because no one before me had brought up sports of any kind. But I also said that I liked to watch YouTube, which was also true, but that I watched clips from Beavis and Butthead, which was a lie. I watched it religiously as a teenager but not anymore. No one laughed after I said it. There was dead silence. I worried, with how strict my company is when it comes to ethics and conduct, that I would be written up for saying the word “butthead.” But no one complained. I had to watch an ethics and conduct training video yesterday as part of the company’s policy, and I was already behind in my work, and that video that lasted an hour only pulled me further behind.

I can’t remember what other TV shows people brought up for the icebreaker. I didn’t know about a lot of them. One of the women brought up Law and Order. People still watch that show surprisingly enough. It appeals to me as much as anime, and I understand the appeal just as little. Whereas only kids should watch anime, only old people who stay in the house all day and play crossword puzzles out of the newspaper to keep their minds busy should watch Law and Order. The woman looked young, maybe late twenties. Then again, I don’t know what shows are popular now. The majority watches streaming services, not network TV, because network TV is lame. It has always been lame, nowadays especially. But how would I know if I don’t watch television exccpt for when football is on. The networks show ads for their programming, so I get to see what the next episode of Survivor will be. I can’t believe that shit is still on (the same with The Bachelor). People must be viewing it.

I stopped watching television a few years after college, so about 2003, with the promise to stop watching it like a diabetic who needed to stop eating sugar. It was only toxic to me. I used to catch myself sitting on the couch for too long, and I would feel like a bag of powdered donuts. When I would look in the mirror afterward, I would see a bag of donuts as well.

Hopefully the next time my team lead gives us an icebreaker, it’s a question I can feel comfortable answering. Most of them don’t. I don’t feel any better afterward.