I spent all night last night in the dayroom of my Air Force dormitory watching cooking shows on the big-screen television. That’s all I could find on any of the channels: cooking shows. It wasn’t what I wanted to watch, but I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t have anything to read, so cooking shows was what I watched.

All night long, one guy after another came into the day room, paused in front of the television for a couple seconds before asking me if I knew the score of a particular football game, I answered No, then he left.

I dreamed all this, of course. I’m not in the Air Force and I don’t watch cooking shows, even when there’s no option, but last night I got to watch three full episodes of somebody chopping up celery and de-boning chicken. Even on the television set of my dreams, there’s nothing good on to watch.