The old, gray woman turns on the television and then flips around to face her eight-year-old granddaughter.


“All right,” she asks in a crackling voice, “what would you like to watch, Darla, dear?”


Darla taps her chin, impatient with the amount of time it is taking herself to decide on a tasteless reality TV show. “Today I’ve already watched that one about living on the island and that other one with the people in the house.”


Darla continues to tap her chin as Granny rolls her eyes at the lack of imagination and tact the next generation has. Suddenly all the fantastic black-and-white television shows have gone out of style. All that seems to be popular in today’s world are random, masochistic shows where people enjoy others’ sufferings. Like that one where you watch animals hurt themselves. Horrible. Granny recalls.


“I know!” Darla interrupts Granny’s thoughts. “I want to watch that new show! That one about the girl with all the boys who has to choose one and then they live happily ever after!” Granny stares at Darla with wide, hazel eyes, not sure how to respond. Pop culture has never been a favorite pastime of Granny’s. Give me some Scrabble and I’m set for hours! Days even! she thinks.


Lost in her thoughts once again, Granny jumps as Darla screams out, “The Bachelorette: Hogwarts Edition! That’s the one! I hear it’s going to be a really, really great show. Lots and lots and lots of drama. And a lot of boys! I hear they’re all going to be extremely dreamy.” Darla grins widely as Granny winces at this notion. She never wanted her granddaughter, a very clever girl with great potential as a witch, to be involved with boys at such a young age.


Reality is killing our youth. Granny’s eyes begin to roll in their sockets again as she picks up the television remote and flips to the reality channel where this new show is sure to be. “What is it with you kids and drama these days?” Granny mumbles to herself. “Is that even appropriate anyway?” She knits her eyebrows and looks down at her seemingly innocent granddaughter who now sits beside her on the plush, navy-blue sofa.


“Granny, if you don’t let me watch The Bachelorette: Hogwarts Edition, I know I’ll be the laughing stock of all the school!” Darla whines.


Granny once again rolls her eyes. Sure, sure, she thinks, the laughing stock of all the third grade. What will she do when she gets to real Wizarding school? No television to burn her brain cells. No frilly girls to gossip with. She’ll never survive. Granny shakes her head in disappointment as she envisions the doomed future of her granddaughter.


She looks down and notices Darla looking at her with round, large blue eyes, as if she were a puppy asking for another bone. This ‘puppy look’ had not affected Granny for at least seven year, yet she enables Darla’s poor attitude and gives her what she wants: her tacky reality television show.