A few months back I was so sick I had to go see the doctor. That alone indicates the condition was rather serious. I do not like going to the doctor because you have to sit in the waiting room with sick people. I never know what contagious diseases are lurking in the shadows of that doctor’s waiting room. 

My condition progressed to the point where the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage told me to go to the doctor or else. I never want to deal with her “or else.” I have lived as long as I have lived and have enjoyed the health that I do have because I have not found out her “or else.”

Since I do not have health insurance, every time I go to the doctor it comes out of my own pocket. Recently my pockets have not been very deep. Regardless of how shallow my pockets may be, doctors know how to penetrate to the very depths of my pockets with their special scalpel.

The result of my visit to the doctors was that I had double pneumonia and bronchitis. Simply put, I was sick. He gave me a prescription to fill and then said I should spend at least the next two weeks in bed resting.

I was in such a state of mind that it sounded like a good idea to me. Of course, I made him write it out as a prescription so I could show it to my wife so she would believe me that I’m in bed because I’m sick not because I’m trying to avoid my chores.

The first couple of days I spent in bed hardly conscious of anything around me. I am not sure if I ate during those days are not. I have no recollection of anything conscious during those days.

By the beginning of the second week, I was strong enough to get out of bed, put on my bathrobe and get back in bed and rest. It was not long before I could actually put on the bathrobe, go out into the living room, sit down in my easy chair and watch TV.

I have never watched as much TV as I did during those several weeks of recuperation. I am not saying there is anything wrong with TV, just that there is not that much right with TV anymore. I did not know how bad TV was until I watched it for about two weeks. During this time I was too sick to read and so settled down to watching TV, that is between naps.

I would set a program and leaned back and within two winks of my left eye I was sound asleep. When I say sound asleep, I mean my sleeping was very sound, I did not know what was going on around me. Occasionally I would pierce the world of consciousness and see what was on TV. Then I would fall back into the delightful world of unconsciousness.

After a few days of this, I was able to stay in the conscious world a little bit longer and consequently I was watching TV a little bit longer. The thing I found about TV is that TV dominated by chatterboxes.

My ears were beginning to have its fill of chatter. I do not believe my ears were created to handle such a steady stream of incoherent verbiage. All day long, my ears were bombarded by noise coming from the mouths of people who had no idea what they were saying. I say that because, if they knew what they were saying and were hearing what I was hearing, I do not think they would be saying it so people could hear.

The TV world has been taken over by a hostile terrorist group known as talk shows. Does everybody in the world have a talk show? I have never seen or heard so much talking all of my life. After all, there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, how can people come up with so many words?

The airwaves are filled with news talk shows, celebrity talk shows, cooking talk shows, sports talk shows, religious talk shows, talk shows of every variety you could think of and some you would not even think of. When I say variety, I am referring to the title of the talk show. Once you get beyond the title, everything is the same.

The only skill one needs to have for a talk show is, open your mouth and let verbiage flow uncontrollably and the more incoherent the better.

Between sneezing and blowing my nose and coughing uncontrollably, I watched some of these shows. Who in the world is watching these shows? Somebody must be. The only reason I was watching them was that I was so sick I could not do anything else. Maybe that is their audience.

When I got to the place that I could read without my eyes watering too much, I read what the Bible has to say on the subject. “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you” (1 Thessalonians 4:11 KJV).

I have come to a somber conclusion; more people talk than listen, which is why the world is in the state it is in. I call it the Yakety-Yak syndrome of which there is no known cure.