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When we were young, my mother told my siblings and me the true story of two children who gave up television for several months in exchange for a monetary bribe from their parents.

Mother then presented a similar challenge: Give up TV and reap the financial rewards. We siblings held a summit and agreed, within minutes, that it was simply out of the question.

We had already been rationed to an hour a day, and negotiating our television time slots was as intricate and sensitive as hammering out an international treaty. Family sitcoms conflicted with late-afternoon cartoons. At 10 years old, I felt my sense of humour had matured past the juvenile slapstick enjoyed by my eight-year-old brother and five-year-old sister.

My brother, sister and I couldn't imagine what those two newly rich but televisionless kids did with their time. Reading, playing in the park, homework — these were fillers until The Cosby Show came on.

My love of television followed me to university. I kept it under control and only indulged with friends on specific must-see-series nights. Shows were meant to be "talked at," not followed too intensely.

They were hard to follow, anyway, as there was always someone — somehow in possession of a scholarship — interrupting because he or she did not understand the complexity of Dawson's Creek. Still, I knew that beneath my social façade, I wanted to relax, be silent and watch.

When I eventually joined the work force and found a place to live, I once again turned to the screen. Returning home from work exhausted, I fell onto the couch and zoned out, caught somewhere between awake and asleep. All my energy went into my job, where I was often on call 24/7, and there seemed to be no life left to squeeze out of my body.

I realized things had to change when a ridiculously large piece of exercise equipment arrived at my one-bedroom condo. I had purchased it from a late-night television ad during a bout of insomnia. I recognized the purchase for what it was: a desperate attempt to get off the couch.

Like a recovering addict, I searched for things to occupy my time: courses, books, baths. I became what one would call "well rounded," and discovered the truth behind the saying: "If you want something done give it to a busy person." Energy begets energy.

I was the annoying person who announced she didn't watch television, who packed lunches at night and folded laundry as soon as the dryer was done, not two days later when the clothes were a crumpled mess. Most impressively, I used an agenda book not only for work, but for after work.

Then life shook things up again. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and I went home to stay with her after the mastectomy. As she lay on the bed that I had made on the couch, and I sat across from her on the loveseat, it wasn't time for a good book or a board game. I picked up the remote and turned on the thing that had entertained me — rightly or wrongly — for so many years.

A trait my mother and I share is the ability to form half-hearted snap judgments that we forget almost as soon as they are formed. Reality television seemed the perfect outlet as my mother recovered. We spent hours watching not-so-real situations that were so similar, I thought we were watching the same episode over and over again.

Our favourite was the numbing The Hills, a show that relied mostly on wide eyes and long pauses to convey the angst of relationships gone bad or the anxiety of finding out that your clueless friends have crashed your first important work event.

"I can't tell anyone apart," my mother said, bandaged, staring intently at the screen. "I really don't like that blond girl."

"Why?"

She shrugged.

I nodded. "Me neither."

We sat for hours through catfights and wardrobe changes. There was something strange about watching limitless television with my mother, a woman who had once offered us cash incentives to give up the thing that now lulled us into a semi-coma.

Occasionally, her eyes would close or she would adjust the tube that drained blood from her wound. The tube that ran inside her caused her the most pain. When she winced, the television drama faded away to be replaced by the reality that she was facing months of chemotherapy. The fact that she wasn't demanding I shut the TV off and learn how to crochet, or complete a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, scared me.

"This is awful," she sighed, staring at the screen. I couldn't tell if she was talking about another tense standoff or the stitches on her chest.

"Once you're a bit better we'll go outside," I promised.

Right then I knew I wouldn't look at television the same way again. I was looking forward to the short break between the mastectomy healing and the chemotherapy starting, when my mother and I could go for a long walk around the neighbourhood.

Karen Kelly lives in Toronto.

Illustration by Josée Bisaillon.