This is why we don't watch CSI

As far back as I can remember, even before our redhead was a crawler, Bailey has been interested in drama. And I don't mean the theatrical version. I mean arguing on the television set. Dramatic music. Murder scenes. Dramatic flashback sequences. And as soon as we noticed this dark side in her, we became professional channel switchers. And during all of that discovering, we stopped watching our favorite shows. It wasn't worth all the extra psychiatrist appointments later on in life. We were going to have enough of that the way it was. And is.

And this continues even more to this day. We were at Grandma and Grandpa's house one evening and Grandma was flipping through the plethora of channels their super duper Cable has and landed on Desperate Housewives. Drama galore there. Neither one of us were watching it, it was just on as we were talking about other nonsense and then we happened to notice Bailey, glued to the chaos on the big screen. Grandma instantly switched the channel, without anyone asking her to. It's instinct, I think.

Well, this morning, I was finally sitting on the couch for a second and started flipping channels. I don't watch a lot of television, so I flipped a bit, got bored, and just ignored whatever channel it landed on, per usual. I glanced up, saw that a show was just starting, a CSI: New York episode, and switched the channel to Nickelodeon. I then almost instantaneously hear, "But I want to watch the dead guy."

I was a bit flabbergasted, honestly. What do you say to that? And it was the best episode for her, let me tell you. A guy was in a cemetery looking at some headstone with a television screen embedded into it. Then he started dripping blood. Now, if you don't know our redhead, she's all about cemeteries and dripping blood. Grossly so. I explained to her this isn't a show to watch, but she disagreed.

Now what happened next was when it became difficult for me to turn the channel a fourth time. Right after the dead guy was on the screen, they started searching the crime scene and noticed there was no bullet. Now I asked again to turn the channel, for yet another attempt and my Bailey says, "Not yet. I have to find the bullet first."

Bailey was no longer interested in the blood, she was now enthralled in investigating the crime like a miniature Sherlock Holmes. And once the lab was involved, two seconds later, the scientific element was enlightening her. She is our little scientist, so I almost felt like maybe she could handle this, even if I as a parent could not.

And then they introduced yet another crime. As soon as they had a naked body wrapped in satin sheets on the screen, I was turning the channel, which was conveniently at the moment they uttered the words, "kinky sex." Bailey wanted it back on and I was crossing my fingers they'd gone back to the lab, but no. I was desperate to get this channel turned without creating a household version of World War III, so I offered to put a movie on. Bailey was willing. She wanted to watch Monsters Inc. If only I was fast enough...

There was blood in the victim's ear and something even more interesting to Bailey. She wanted to know what it was, and answered her own question, "whatever it is, it's disgusting." I'm hiding my face in sheer guilt as she gets even more excited over the fact that a spider laid eggs inside the girl's ear. All that went through my head: Great, I'm never going to get the channel turned and a movie in now.

The drama ensued and I eventually convinced Bailey to watch a movie but not without her adding, "I don't think we ever found the bullet."


I'm never switching the channel from Disney or Nickelodeon ever again.