Nielsen Diary

Television. It's the greatest thing ever. Going outside? Overrated. Traveling to new places? Booooooring! Participating in activities? Meh. We all know deep in our hearts that TV is what we really want. TV teaches us to laugh, cry, and most importantly, which celebrities should be mocked.

In case you didn't know, what we watch on television is highly dependent on ratings. The highest rated shows stay on the air and the lowest rated shows suffer the fate of Perfect Strangers and Alf. Who determines these ratings? For years it was rumored to be the inhabitants of the lost city of Atlantis. A typographical error revealed that it was just the citizens of Atlanta, which should have been perfectly obvious after "227" spent three straight years at the top. Once Atlanta was dismissed, the business of TV ratings fell to Nielsen Media Research. Now magical boxes are attached to select televisions and monitor what folks watch. Imagine being able to influence what is on TV! No more making toast with celebrities! No more sitcoms about a wacky dysfunctional dad and his cool street-smart kids! No more Tim Allen!

How does one get selected for this great honor? In addition to media research, Nielsen just happens to be the company that administers small pox vaccines. Possessing a copy of every person's DNA enables them to run a highly selective test. After mixing my DNA in a cathode ray tube with Hawaiian Punch a match was made! What are they looking for? Extreme snobbery, no shortage of strong opinions, and a firm belief that only what you think is right. They told me they had never seen a match that fulfilled all of these requirements so completely.

A few weeks later the test diary arrived in the mail. I was to record all the programs we viewed during the week and then mail it back when we were done. Mojo and I sat down on the sofa and began to make a difference. We watched NFL Football, Sportscenter, NFL Primetime, James Bond-athon, My Name is Earl, The Office, The Simpsons, Lost, and many others. Confident we had helped make the TV world a better place, we popped our diary into the mail and waited to see if we would be selected.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. Confident that there had been some kind of mistake I called Nielsen and demanded to know why my permanent ratings box had not yet been delivered. They had the audacity to inform me that my diary contained a meticulous tracking of the worst shows they had ever seen in the history of TV ratings! Oh the humanity! They assured me that Shoulders J. Monkeypants would never have a ratings box in his home. What's this? Shoulders? The mystery had been solved! Once more I had been done in by the smallest and craftiest of all the monkeyfriends! Rage rushed through me as if I had just drank a gallon of contaminated water in a Mexican hotel! Oh sure, I've looked the other way in the past, but this time Shoulders and I would sit down and have a long talk.



Shoulders heard what I had to say but countered with this:



It was hard to disagree with his main point and I concluded that the next time Shoulders asks for a machine gun for Christmas I should probably just get him a gift card to the Gap.