The Nielsen Co. released a study the other day showing that people in my demographic spend about 48 hours a week watching TV, or approximately 7 hours a day.

Wow. Honestly, I can't imagine watching TV for seven hours a day, but I have to admit that I watch way too much.

In my defense, I can list a baker's dozen very good reasons for my viewing habits.

1. A person can only watch spanish moss grow on live oak trees for so long before it gets boring. It took about 8 minutes for me.

2. I'm so old and so married that I don't think they'd even let me in a singles bar. Or most anywhere else young people -- meaning people under 65 -- get to go.

3. I can barely spell iPad or iPhone or whatever other i's are out there. Apple, in my house, is a tasty fruit.

4. I haven't played an electronic game since Pong. OK, there was that Pac-Man craze.

5. I live a hundred yards from a branch of the Charleston County Library, but it's small. I think I've read all the books I care about.

Hello, television.

6. I could get started on writing the great American novel, but I'm too lazy. And don't tell the editors, but this column only takes a couple of hours. Shh.

7. McClellanville does not have a minor league baseball team to help while away summer nights.

8, McClellanville doesn't even have a water park or a miniature golf course or a swell Coastal Grand mall to sit and people-watch.

9. I don't fish -- the one pastime every guy in McClellanville shares, except for one guy. Yeah, that would be me. Incidentally, do people still use worms for bait?

10. My boat spends more time at Cape Romain Marine, being fixed, than it spends on the Intracoastal Waterway.

11. It's usually too hot for yardwork. Or too cold. Or too many mosquitos. Or too much inertia. Well, you get the picture. It's always something.

12. Sometimes there is actually something I want to watch. Football. The Ryder Cup. Wimbledon. NCAA basketball.

13. And there are some guilty pleasures I refuse to admit publicly.

That reminds me: Does anyone know when the new ``Survivor''

starts?

Contact BOB BESTLER at bestler6@tds.net.