Television Wars

     The kitchen in our house was off limits after dinnertime.  It had nothing to do with one of us kids stealing a cookie from the cookie jar, or taking a swig of forbidden Coca-Cola from the fridge, reasons which would have been justifiable.
     In the 1970's the standard 19" black & white model television set resided in most living rooms, ours included.  Inevitably, additional features usually included a bent, wire coat hanger serving as a makeshift antenna replacing a broken one.  The circle-shaped loopy thing in the back seemed to last a little longer, but not by a lot.  Three channels were available.  On some days, we were able to get four.  But no matter that manual adjustments to tint, contrast, and vertical hold were a daily necessity, or that a windy day affected its reception, or that cable TV was still a decade away. It was one reason above all others that was responsible for the poor picture quality.
     "Who's in the kitchen?!" Dad would yell when static distorted Walter Cronkite's voice.
     "Get out of the kitchen!" He'd bark when Archie Bunker's face would repeatedly flip on the screen.
     Whoever was in the adjacent kitchen was responsible for the bad reception of the TV in the living room.  I never quite understood the causation there, and my guess is that the electrical engineers at Sony wouldn't have either.  But apparently my father understood it, understood it well, and understood it emphatically.  Whatever issue the television was having, whoever was milling around in the kitchen was the guilty party.  And nobody was immune to Dad's verbal wrath either.
     "Damnit, Duke, get over here!" he'd yell at the dog whenever he crossed from carpet to linoleum.  Duke would turnaround, walk back, head down, tail between his legs, apologetic for his thoughtless behavior.
     The funniest times were when Dad's Pavlovian response to the television's shoddiness would be directed at nobody.
     "Who's in the kitchen?" (no response)...
     "Damnit, get outta the kitchen!" (no response)...
     "Who the hell is in the kitchen?" (no response)...
     "Dad, no one's in the kitchen"  one of us would inform him from a few feet away in the living room.
     He'd then get up off the couch and fiddle with the makeshift antenna and the circle-shaped loopy thing.  "Well...someone was in the kitchen."