Discovering My Outer Limits

Discovering My Outer Limits

SL Kirby

Sometimes social shock occurs with children, because they don’t understand the world the way older people do. I was four years old in 1965. Our large black and white TV set sat in the center of our living room in our apartment in Falls Church, Virginia. That television was the center of my mornings. Part of my routine. It played an important role in whether it was a good day or a bad day. I would have breakfast at about nine. Then I would sit down and watch cartoons. I loved cartoons. I had spent the last few years in another country so cartoons were new and in English, which I could understand. I soon realized though, that watching cartoons, was not without risk.

My mother was a very social person. She could make friends anywhere she went. In Virginia she also had the advantage of speaking the same language as everyone else. As a result she spoke it with everyone and often. I was content when the cartoons were on. I could ignore my Mom’s friends and disappear into my own cartoon coma. Dudley Doo Right and Rocky and Bullwinkle would flash across the screen to my absolute pleasure.

One day my mother was talking to a neighbor and the cartoons were on until 11:00 am. Suddenly, the cartoons went off. There was a commercial for Tide. Suddenly an alien face appeared on the screen. I had never seen him before, but his instructions were clear. Do not attempt to adjust your set. We have taken over your television for the..........

“Ahhhh! Mommy .. Mommy. The TV!” I screamed.

At that moment the neighbor wisely left and my mother in her wisdom cut the television off and removed me from the room. It took me all day to get the image of that alien out of my head. We had evaded the aliens today, but now I knew the aliens were out there, things might be different next time. I kept sneaking peeks at the blank TV all day. Luckily we had avoided the television and the alien did not reappear.

A couple of weeks went by. I forgot all about the aliens bent on taking over the world by controlling our TV set. There were cartoons to watch after all. My mother wisely made sure the television was turned off before 11:00 am.

One day a particularly talkative neighbor came over to visit my mother at about 10:15 am. Evidently she had a lot to say of particular importance. I should have known there would be trouble when I asked my Mom for juice and she barely looked up. At about ten thirty I started feeling a little unsettled, but I didn’t know why.

As the cartoons ended, I started to feel a creeping kind of dread. That kind of anticipation that something bad was about to happen. Rocky and Bullwinkle ended then there was a Tide commercial and a diaper commercial. Then the face that had haunted me since the first time I saw it. That alien visage was back on my television. I knew this time he had us.

“ Do not attempt to adjust your set. We control the vertical and horizontal.” They did! Wavy lines appeared on the screen to prove it. We have taken over your set for the next hour you will ..... At that point I started pulling on my mother and screaming and pointing to the TV. She didn’t budge, she kept on talking.

“ Mommy they have taken over the TV! Mommy they are back!” I screamed.

“Oh for goodness sakes, just turn it off.” She said calmly.

She obviously was so busy talking she had not grasped what this alien had said. I looked up and explained carefully.

“ We can’t, they have taken over the television.” I said this in my clearest and loudest voice. We might have been able to narrowly escape them last time, but they had us now. They had us by the vertical and horizontal. What happened next, changed my perception and gave me a new kind of knowledge about the world around me.

“Oh for goodness sakes!” She said, as she excused herself from her friend, walked over to the television and turned it off. Then she went back to talk to her friend, leaving me staring blankly at the television. I waited for it to come back on. I looked for that menacing face. The television stared blankly back at me. No more aliens! We could turn them off. Mom had the power! Maybe I had the power. I turned the TV on. I saw the alien face, I turned it off. The alien had lied. He didn’t control our television. We did, I did. I controlled the vertical and horizontal. I left for our errands that day a wiser child. A child with the power over my own television set.