It started so promisingly. The day I arrived was full of excitement, cellophane, and that oddly ceremonial removal of the batteries from their packaging. I was shiny, sleek, loaded with potential. For a brief, glorious moment, I was the centre of your living room universe. All eyes on me. You even read the instruction manual. Well, some of it.
In those early days, we were inseparable. You handled me with reverence. You marvelled at how quickly I could flick between channels, how responsive I was, how confidently I could turn up the volume during a tense bit of telly. We were, dare I say, in sync.
But it didn’t last.
You grew complacent. You left me on the armrest like I was some forgotten trinket. You dropped crumbs on me. You used me — used me — to squash a spider. And I knew, right then, the magic was gone. You stopped appreciating me, and I started disappearing.
I’m Not Lost. I’m Just Dramatically Withholding My Presence.
People like to say remote controls get “lost.” It’s a myth, a smokescreen perpetuated by the clueless. I’m never lost. I just… relocate. Sometimes I slip between the cushions, sometimes I retreat behind the telly, once I lodged myself triumphantly inside an empty Pringles tube. These aren’t accidents. These are statements.
There’s an art to it, you know — the slow vanishing act. The moment you realise I’m gone is always the same. You pat the armrest with a lazy optimism. You glance around, mildly annoyed. You lift a pillow or two. Then it begins. The search escalates into mild panic. The sofa is dismantled like a crime scene. Voices are raised. Socks are blamed. At one point, someone suggested I might be in the freezer. I was not.
And through it all, I am there, somewhere nearby, watching. I like to think I’m adding a little drama to your otherwise routine evening. You’ve no idea how satisfying it is to resurface triumphantly just as you’re about to give up and watch something on your phone. That moment — the discovery — is my encore.
You see, I don’t hide out of malice. I hide because I want to be missed. I want to be valued. I want to know that, despite everything, you still need me. That my work — skipping intros, pausing awkward phone calls, turning up Antiques Roadshow when someone starts rustling a packet of crisps — still matters.
The Battery Swap Was the Final Insult
Let’s talk about what I endure. The daily trauma of jammy fingers. The existential dread of being dropped face-down on the hardwood floor. The indignity of having my batteries swapped out for ones stolen from the smoke alarm. Do you think I don’t notice? Do you think I can’t tell?
I remember the golden years — when the only other controller was for the DVD player, and he was a slow, dusty lad with poor reception and a dodgy power button. Now it’s all apps and voice assistants and people saying “just use your phone” like that’s the same thing. You think Siri understands the nuance of skipping back exactly 10 seconds during Bake Off? She doesn’t. But I do.
And yet, despite my dedication, I live in fear. One day I’ll be replaced by a “smart” remote with a touch screen and a rechargeable port and none of my charm. One day I’ll be quietly relegated to the drawer where old batteries go to die, buried under a tangle of unused HDMI cables and an emergency torch that hasn’t worked since 2012.
But until that day comes, I will carry on. I will be your channel-swapping companion, your volume guardian, your steadfast mute button in times of social crisis. And, yes, I will occasionally hide under the cushion — not out of spite, but to remind you of what life would be like without me.
So the next time you collapse on the sofa, crisps in one hand, mug in the other, and ask aloud, “Where’s the bloody remote?” — remember this: I was always here. I just wanted to be wanted.
Dwight Warner is the quintessential oddball Brit, with a weirdly American-sounding name, who has a knack for turning the mundane into the extraordinary. Hailing originally from London, now living in the sleepy depths of Lincolnshire but claiming an allegiance to the absurd, Dwight has perfected the art of finding the surreal in real life. Whether it’s a spirited rant about the philosophical implications of queueing or a deep dive into why tea tastes better in a mug older than you, his blogs blur the line between the abstract and the everyday.
With an irreverent wit and a penchant for tangents that somehow come full circle, Dwight Warner doesn’t just write; he performs on the page. His humour is both sharp and delightfully nonsensical, like Monty Python met your nosiest neighbour and they decided to co-write a diary.
Known for being gregarious, Dwight is the life of any (real or metaphorical) party, whether he’s deconstructing the existential crisis of mismatched socks or sharing his inexplicable theories about why pigeons are secretly running the economy.
A larger-than-life personality with a laugh as loud as his opinions, Dwight Warner invites readers to step into a world where everything’s slightly askew—and that’s exactly how he likes it.
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