Top 10 Places Your TV Remote Is Right Now

As far as accessories go, the TV remote is the missing left sock of the electronic world. Despite the size and strength of your brain, the remote control is one of many items that simply cannot be placed or remembered in the human memory.

Of course, this all leads us to ask: where the hell is your TV remote right now?

Before we get too deep into this game, you should take a moment to look down at your right hand. Is the TV remote nestled between those fleshy digits attached to your right hand? Hey, maybe you’re a lefty—a good chunk of us are. Check your left and then right hand—if it’s not there, you can safely say your TV remote is not in your hands.

Of course! The couch! The place where the person who watches television often sits! To watch television! If you’re sitting, stand up and take a quick mental inventory of everything on the couch. If it’s empty, remove a few cushions and any extraneous pillows to peer underneath. Within the belly of this beast, you’re more than likely to find loose change, Hot Wheels, old fruit, and if you’re lucky, the television remote that’s eluded you for so long.

So your remote control wasn’t inside the couch, don’t let that little roadblock dissuade you from ruling out the couch as a potential captor for your precious clicker. Have you considered turning your keeper-of-relaxation on end and checking underneath its precious hull? With the strength of your arms, combined with the arms of a loved one, lift one side up and sweep underneath this leather Moby Dick. Allow your fingers to search for the plastic shell of your remote like a blind person seeing for the first time.  

You can officially rule out the couch, but now it’s time to retrace your steps—think long and hard: how do you usually get from your bedroom to the couch? Do you take a direct route?  Do you usually go through another room? Do you walk in a way that could potentially lead to “butterfingers?” Like a bloodhound hunting for its prey, snoop around your lounging area and keep your eyes peeled like an apple—a peeled apple.

The television is to the remote control as Jenny was to Forrest Gump. Or Lt. Dan was to Forrest Gump. Or, really, any character relatively close to Forrest Gump in the film. They go together, control one another, and ultimately will be buried together...metaphorically. Of course your remote control is on top of your TV—why wouldn’t it want to be with its creator? A television without a remote is a car without keys: useless. Wait, where are your car keys?

Keep calm and try to regain your sense of composure, damn you. We’ve determined the sense of connectivity between the television and the television remote is strong, like a mother and her first born child. If the remote isn’t on the TV, it logically must be near the TV. When you’re done hyperventilating like an infant, go to your TV stand, remembering to remove any Daytime Emmys that you may have won, and search for that god damn remote control.

At this point, you shouldn’t panic, but you also shouldn’t not panic. How is it that people lose the things that they consider so dear to them? Memory, carelessness, and illegal drugs. If you or a loved one spent the last night or three ingesting marijuana, you could have—while “high”—placed the remote in the refrigerator. While the reasoning for this action is fundamentally flawed, such an action makes perfect sense when you’re under the influence of illegal (or legal) pot. Check the inside of the fridge, check behind the milk, look behind the eggs, remove any stray Daytime Emmys, and find that remote before the cold kills the batteries.

What the heck’s that front pocket for anyway? I mean, it’s all well and good when you’ve got the opportunity to stick a pen in there, but for the most part, it’s a useless part of your wardrobe that holds lint and your remote control?! Check! Is it there? It is, isn’t it! Oh, it’s not? F*ck! Can you call a remote?

Okay, it’s not completely ridiculous to suggest you could have literally slipped something so small under the rug—the expression exists for a reason. You know what? It might have been the cleaning lady. She’s such a sweetheart and she probably swept it under rug by accident. A woman that wonderful wouldn’t commit such a heinous crime on purpose. What’s that? You don’t have a cleaning lady? Wait, don't you have hardwood floors? What’s happening? Whose puppies are those?! This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife!

Consider this: maybe you never had a TV remote in the first place—what, with technology and all? Either that or your clicker has met the same fate as your legion of M.I.A. left socks from times past. Maybe it’s here, but not in the sense that you’re used to. Here’s a quick theory: did you guys ever see Interstellar? We’re not trying to blow whistles or alarm the masses, but maybe Matthew McConaughey broke into your home and stole your remote with his greasy Texan hands.

Jeremy Glass is the Vice editor for Supercompressor and, realistically, has a soft spot in his heart for Matthew McConaughey.