My teenage son had moved into his college dorm, taking with him the Doritos from the snack cabinet, all knowledge of how to operate the TV using his video game console, and the password to our Netflix account.

Sawyer’s half-sister Savannah, who is 24 and understands these things, suggested I get a streaming device.

A what? I asked.

A streaming device, she explained patiently as people her age do when they speak to the technology-impaired, would let me easily watch movies and TV shows from online sources like Netflix.

I could get one for about $40. Savannah would set it up for me when it arrived.

Two days later, I made seared salmon tacos for dinner, and Savannah unboxed the Amazon Fire Stick. It was about the size of a flash drive.

She plugged it into an HDMI video port in the side of the TV, turned it on and tapped in passwords.

She handed me the slim black remote, giving me access to something like 15,000 apps, games, channels and services. I clicked through the list: Netflix. Hulu. Amazon Prime. HBO Now. Pandora. YouTube. Starz. Disney Channel. Crackle.

I whooped, making Savannah laugh. “You can tell it’s your first streaming device,” she said.

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I spent an hour and a half looking at what I could be watching, scrolling through movie and show titles and watching trailers.

Savannah showed me how to search for shows, tapping in the title, or the name of an actor, or a subject like “zombies.”

Or, she pointed at the button with a picture of a microphone on it. I pressed it and whispered, “Orange is the New Black,” and there it was on the screen.

And then Savannah told me I could order food delivery with this magical little device. I wouldn’t have to get up off the couch to look up a phone number — or even use my phone. 

I may never leave the house again.

Oh my, I hardly ever watch TV

If anyone ever asks if I watch a lot of TV, I automatically say no in that holier-than-thou way meant to indicate I’m obviously the kind of person who consumes more books than episodes of “Dance Moms.”

But the truth is, I do watch “Dance Moms” (don’t mock me). And “The Walking Dead.” And the evening news.

And sometimes “Criminal Minds.” And “Doctor Who” and “Sherlock” on BBC America.

OK, and “Game of Thrones,” though not until it was in its sixth season after everyone else I knew had been watching it for years.

(“Are you caught up on Game of Thrones yet?” Ally would ask. And then, “Hurry up, so we can talk about it!”)

Was the countess at the Red Wedding?

Watching TV used to be so easy. Mindless, even. I’d flop on the couch and flip through the channels. We all watched the same handful of channels and the next day at school or work, we all talked about the same shows.

Eight nights in a row in January 1977, everyone — and really, it seemed like everyone — watched Alex Haley’s miniseries “Roots.” In 1979, everyone watched Archie tell his ailing wife, Edith, that he loved her on the final episode of “All in the Family.” A year later, we all tuned in to “Dallas” to find out who shot J.R. Ewing.

One episode at a time. We would be left hanging, mouth gaping, at the end, and have to wait a whole week to find out what happened next.

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That’s not how we watch TV anymore. We make our own choices, on our own schedule, and hardly ever watch just one episode at a time.

It’s hard to keep up. Some of my friends are outraged by cast changes on “The Great British Bake Off,” while others are swooning over Jon Snow.

Everyone has a favorite show that I have to watch.

Jim recommends “The Blacklist.” Catherine loves “Midsomer Murders.” Oh, Savannah asks, have I seen “Top of the Lake”?

I keep a list.

Because I watch TV like I read books, not keeping up with the latest and most popular, maybe getting around to the summer’s best beach reads sometime near Christmas.

I missed Matthew’s proposal to Lady Mary on Christmas Day on “Downton Abbey,” Stringer Bell getting gunned down on “The Wire,” and Matt Santos being elected president on “The West Wing.”

Which I’m sure is fine. It hasn’t kept me from living an otherwise completely fulfilling life. But it has kept me out of viewing parties and mystified by the follow-up discussions.

(Wait, what happened at the Red Wedding?)

The world was mine …

With my new streaming device, I thought I might catch up.

I would come home from work, pour a glass of wine, and curl up on one end of the couch, whispering my desires to the remote.

I got sucked into one show after another, watching three, four or five episodes in an evening. Season four and then five of “Orange is the New Black,” one after the other, and then the first two seasons of “Gotham.”

Saying a single word — “zombie” — into the remote gave me the last season of “Z Nation” and a British movie called “The Girl with All the Gifts.”

I watched the season finale of “Game of Thrones” on the actual day it aired and group texted with friends about the cunning of the Stark sisters.

I got in a season of “Humans,” and then the first one of “Insecure.”

Oh, sure, I’d do other things while I watched — pay my bills online, fold laundry, paint my nails, and answer emails. But the TV was on, and I was on the couch, curled up or stretched out, the dog nestled beside me.

I mean, it was no big deal. Watching TV at home alone had become acceptable, cool, even. People do it all the time.

And then one day I got up from the couch and stumbled, my leg stiff after sitting still for an inordinately long period of time.

Was this a problem? Nah. I had too many other commitments for this to be a worry — my job, tap dance class, and, um, other things.

One episode would run into the other, starting in 10 seconds, 9 seconds, 8 seconds. I could get to the bathroom and back without hitting the pause button.

I bent over and brushed my fingertips against the floor to stretch my back.

“Continue watching?” asked a pop-up box on the screen. Of course.

But then one day Ally texted and asked if I wanted to meet for lunch. Lunch at a restaurant I love with real-life human beings — or another episode of “Gotham”?

It took me too long to decide.

Maybe I wasn’t just watching TV. Maybe I was hiding. 

… but which world did I want?

I hate this time of year anyway.

It feels like summer has stretched out way too long. I start the season like a Phoenix warrior, battling the triple-digit temperatures as only we can. But by mid-September, (it was 110 on Tuesday), I am done with the heat, and ready for fall.

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Staying home meant I was spending less money, in restaurants and shopping, something I was thinking more about now that I have a kid in college.

And I might be missing that kid in college, even though I claim that I’m not.

There had been so much to do in the months before he left: thank-you notes and parties, summer vacations, and packing for the dorm. I just needed to be still.

I stayed on the couch and explored this magical world delivered through a wedge of black plastic, a world where problems are wrapped up in an episode.

The house is oddly quiet. So I turn up the volume on the TV, and go with Chummy to deliver a breech baby in 1950s London’s West End and then with Issa Rae on a girls’ weekend to Malibu.

It took me a couple of weeks to snap out of it, to not head for the couch as soon as I got done with work. I went to lunch with Ally that day. I worked out at the gym. I took the dog for a walk.

On the way to work, I dropped off a pair of shoes in need of repair that had been sitting by the front door for weeks. I drove my dusty car through the car wash.

I invited my cousin Kasey and her kids over to swim. The boys are 4 and 2, Willow is 1.

I pause in front of the TV. It’s been on all day, tuned to a channel that runs some of my old favorites — “Little House on the Prairie,” “Murder, She Wrote,” and “The Bionic Woman.”

I pick up the remote and hold it near my lips, thinking of what I could whisper to it, the places it could take me, the people I could spend the day with. Except it can’t take me anywhere and the people are just pixels of color and light.

I put down the remote just as there is a knock at the front door, and the kids rush in, hugging me around my legs, their laughter drowning out the TV. 

I reach over their heads for the remote and turn the TV off. 

Reach Bland at [email protected] or 602-444-8614.

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