TV Education

This is an excerpt from an article I read in Reader's Digest, written by Nury Vittachi, this morning during breakfast:

...Perhaps TV does educate you. For example, you learn a useful medical fact: A person who has been shot always has time to speak a partial sentence before he dies.

"The killer was....it was...." (dies).

You also get fascinating architectural knowledge: ALL buildings have air vents big enough to crawl through. For your convenience, these are also clean, have concealed lighting, and end in grills that you can open with a simple push.

But i guess the biggest category of things we learn from TV can be classified under "Life Skills". Bad things only happen on dark and stormy nights. Emotional breakdowns cause people to wander in the heavy rain without umbrellas. And contrary to what scientists say, the crack of lighting and the accompanying flash happen simultaneously, wherever you are.

I've even acquired useful geograpical facts from sci-fi shows: Aliens speak English no matter what part of the galaxy they come from!

Making use of what we learn from TV can improve our security. Consider these three TV truths.

(1) If you are ever attacked by gang of 20 people, don't worry about being outnumbered. The baddies will hang back and take turns to approach you in ones and twos just so you can conveniently defeat them all.

(2) Nightwatchmen are nondescript guys employed to do just two things: sleep at their desks and be the first to get killed. It's in their job description.

(3) Bad guys who are completely covered up in black clothes always whip off their black masks to reveal that they are in fact, gasp, women.

TV also teaches us important information about escaping from danger. Watch and learn.

(1) If anyone is chasing you down an alley, you will find that boxes have been conveniently placed near all the walls you need to jump over. You barely even need to stretch.

(2) You can hide without being detected in the foot well of the back seat of a car, even if you are a large adult and space is only 30 centimetres wide.

(3) If you are tall and handsome with hair that flops over your forehead, you can run from any number of armed villains, and every bullet will miss you.

Be warned, however. If your namecard says "henchman" and you are part of a group of nondescript people pursuing a floppy-haired, handsome individual, a single bullet will kill you. No matter how far away from the chap you're standing. This is sad, but don't fret. TV also delivers useful info for bad guys. All cars are inflammable and have amazing shock absorbers that enable them to soar through the air and land without damage - except police cars. Those will crash and burn in any chase.

TV even teaches us about TV. Whenever anyone turns on a TV, its shows a news flash about someone they know. They then turn the box off immediately after that news item.

Police officers can learn from TV too. When your boss takes your badge and says, "You're off the case," that's when you solve it.

Hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did!!

And oh and one more thing (and this is purely mine own observation), in a horror/sci-fi/action flick, the black guy is almost always the one to die first.