No sir, my TV is a plant stand.

Whatever sensor has been planted in my apartment to cause people to drop by at inconvenient times apparently kicked into action tonight as I was in the shower. The doorbell rings one time, and I imagine it must be a package or some such thing. I thought they would leave it by the door and leave me be. Immediately after my shower, still dripping wet, I crack the door to see what the mailman left me. Nothing. 5 minutes later, however, the collection guy from NHK comes by.

NHK, for those of you who don't keep up on Japanese TV, is basically the media company with a massive monopoly on Japanese television. It has an agreement set up wherein the owner of any TV hooked up to NHK must pay a set fee for the service they receive, in which case they may watch as much TV as they want.

However, I do not watch TV. It's sole purpose in my life is to elevate a small bromiliad above the rest of the room. I also recently borrowed a DVD player, so that gets some use as well. One thing that I never do, ever, is watch TV here.

I told the man something to this effect, and he looked puzzled (part of his puzzlement might be that I was declining to pay a mandatory fee- for a service I have never requested...but he didn't know that). He asked me, (still wet-ish and wearing a yukata) whether or not my TV was broken. I told him it was not. I made helpful gestures to indicate that the power cable was pulled out. He looked terribly bemused- I was strongly reminded of Ray Bradbury's The Pedestrian (click here to read)- I also tried to explain that I mostly just read, which didn't seem to help his bemusement any. Eventually, he got the idea that I wasn't going to pay, and bade me good evening.

I'd feel bad about not paying the mandatory fee, except that:

A) I don't watch any TV, ever, and

B) I already have nice, expensive internet, which is ridden with frequent service outages and unexplainable slow-ups. If I were paying the same amount for internet in the U.S., it the service package would probably come with a toga-clad girl to feed me grapes while I surfed, such are the fees. As it is, I'm already over-charged for my crappy internet, and I'm not going to give NHK my money- if they want to cut off my service, then I will cheerfully not notice while my TV (still!) sits dead and silent in the corner.