During my nightly walks I’ve noticed a strange trend — people watching television in their garage.
Let me start off by saying I can’t recall personally knowing anyone who ever hung out in their garage watching television. During last night’s walk, I saw three different groups of people hanging out in their garage watching television. And those are just the people doing it with the garage doors open — maybe more are sitting in their garage with the doors shut, watching TV; obviously I wouldn’t know.
At one of the homes, I saw a lady folding laundry. Her washer and dryer were in the garage, and as she folded pants and shirts she had her neck craned around, staring at the television. But at the other two houses I couldn’t tell that they were doing anything BUT watching television. At one house, a man sat in camping-style lawn chairs, watching sports. At the third, a whole family (two adults, one kid) spread across both a couch and a chair sat in the garage, watching a movie.
All three had their garage doors wide open. Coincidently (?), all three had their televisions mounted with their screens facing out toward the street, so that people walking by (such as myself) couldn’t help but to notice the bright lights and sounds coming from the garage. It’s as if they want you to see what they’re doing, which kind of seems odd.
I suppose a more scientific person would count the number of houses he or she walked past during a nightly walk and figure out the ratio of garage-viewers to non-garage-viewers. I’m sure 3 out of “however many houses I pass in a mile” isn’t a high ratio, but it seems high to someone who’s never noticed this trend before.
The strangest thing about this entire trend is that the average house in my neighborhood runs around $150,000. I say that only to point out that these are all nice homes, surely with air conditioning, carpet and televisions inside. I can’t imagine hot, humid garages with concrete floors and mosquitos buzzing around could be a more appealing setting.