It’s 3 a.m. and the phone is ringing.
Who is on the line?
Oh, maybe Ruthie from Alabama or Marty from Montana. It all depends on which television rerun of Nancy Grace you’re watching at the time.
Whatever brought you to this point — insomnia, maybe, or the end of a late-night shift — finding something you actually want to watch at 3 o’clock in the morning is a challenge.
It also paints a less than flattering picture of the type of viewers that TV moguls expect to attract in the middle of the night.
Do they think everyone who’s awake at 3 a.m. is overweight, gone to flab, can’t find a date without help or is in need of industrial-strength makeup? Do the decision-makers in charge of late-night programming hold conference calls on just how lame the products sold in the middle of the night can be?
“Yeah, the talking fish mounted on the wall is as outdated as the rubber chicken, but get this — a rubber chicken that does the chicken dance! Huh? Huh? Great idea, right?”
Yes, sir, I want to buy one of those. And I’ll get it for $19.95 plus shipping and handling, except that, if I call right now, I’ll get not one, but two, dancing rubber chickens for not $19.95, but only $9.95, and no shipping fees. Plus, I’ll get a fake fried egg absolutely free! With not one, but two, chicken dance dancing chickens and a fake fried egg, I’ll be the life of the party! (Here, the commercial will cut to a shot of people crowding around someone holding up a fake fried egg, with everyone laughing uproariously.)
Oh, here’s something a bit more upscale — authentic, newly minted old coins plated in genuine fake gold. You’d pay $40, $80, even $100 elsewhere, but you can order now and get your genuine fakes for only $19.95 plus shipping and handling. There’s more! Call right now, and the announcer will throw in his own great-grandmother’s authentic fake antique teapot absolutely free! Be among the first 200 people to call, and you’ll pay only $9.95 and receive, absolutely free, certificates of authenticity for every genuine fake antique you buy.
OK, so if I don’t like what’s on, I can turn to other channels.
Maybe I’ll find a program like “How I Survived Being Attacked by a Grizzly Bear by Beating It in the Head with a Fake Antique Teapot!”
It’s 3 a.m. I do not want to watch any program that shows people being tossed over a bull’s horns, falling from the sky with an uncooperative parachute or being plowed into by an out-of-control racecar.
I’m glad the people survived. I don’t want to watch them doing it.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to television. It doesn’t try to sell you anything. It doesn’t assume you’re an idiot or an adrenaline junkie. It just sits there awaiting your command, day or night, any season, and it never, ever does the chicken dance.
It’s called a book.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@tribtown.com.

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