A word from the Party of the First Part. I'm Frank Ward. I'm 42, I supervise auto claims for an insurance company here in Omaha, and I spend my days reading accounts of what happened from two parties who were both there and agree on nothing. That turns out to be good training for fatherhood.

We have one television worth watching, a 27-inch set in the living room that Beverly and I bought the day after Thanksgiving in 1996, and one remote control. There are five of us. For three years we have fought over that remote the way other countries fight over rivers. Last spring my wife, Beverly, said that this fall would be different, and I said, "How?" and she said, "Write it down, Frank. You write things down for a living."

So we did. On Sunday evening, September 19, after the supper dishes, all five of us sat at the kitchen table with a legal pad, and two hours and one bowl of popcorn later we had a treaty. The new fall season is starting all this week, and so far the peace is mostly holding. Violations are logged on the Treaty Violations and Penalties page, which I update nightly. I've posted the full text below so the parties can't say later that it said something it didn't. That's the claims man in me.

WHEREAS the household has one living room television and one remote control, and the household has five members, and five is more than one;

WHEREAS the parties have spent three television seasons in open conflict, including the Thanksgiving Incident of 1997, the Great Battery Shortage of 1998, and the night last March when nobody could find the remote and we watched a program about bridges for forty minutes rather than get up;

WHEREAS the Party of the First Part (Dad) wishes to watch football and the news, the Party of the Second Part (Mom) wishes to watch her Thursday programs in peace, and the Junior Parties (Kevin, 14, Kristin, 11, and Stephanie, 5) wish to watch everything else, all the time;

AND WHEREAS the new television season begins this week, and nobody wants to spend it the way we spent the last one;

NOW, THEREFORE, the parties agree as follows.

Article I. Sunday Afternoons.
1. From the noon kickoff until the end of the late game, Sunday afternoon belongs to the Party of the First Part, for professional football.
2. At halftime, any party may check the weather or the end of a movie, provided the set is back on the game before the second half kicks off.
3. The Party of the First Part shall not say "One more series" more than three times in one afternoon.
4. Saturday Husker games are not covered by this treaty. In Nebraska, when the Huskers are on, the television belongs to the state.

Article II. Thursday Nights.
1. Thursday from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. belongs to the Party of the Second Part, absolutely and without exception.
2. During Mom's Thursdays, no party may ask "What did I miss?", "Who's that?" or "Is this the one with the doctor?"
3. Commercials during Mom's Thursdays are not open for channel surfing. Mom uses them to get her tea.
4. Kevin's petition for wrestling on Thursday nights was considered at the conference and denied, 4 to 1.

Article III. Saturday Mornings.
1. Saturday from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m. belongs to the Junior Parties.
2. Stephanie has the first hour, since she is up at 6:15 anyway, standing next to our bed.
3. Kristin picks during the hour when Pokémon is on. She has advised the conference that this point is not negotiable, and the conference agreed, because it saw her face.
4. The remaining time goes to Kevin, if Kevin is awake. If Kevin is not awake by 10:00, his time is forfeited to his sisters. (This is the Sleeping Teenager Clause. Kevin has not yet been awake by 10:00.)
5. Grown-ups who wish to watch anything on Saturday morning may do so in the kitchen (Annex C).

Article IV. The News.
1. The 10:00 local news belongs to the Party of the First Part, every night, including the weather, the sports and the human-interest story at the end.
2. The Party of the First Part may watch the weather at 10:00 even if he watched the weather at 6:00, and even though nothing has changed, because, he says, "you never know." (Article IV, Section 2 was the most heavily debated provision of the treaty. It passed 3 to 2.)

Article V. The Mute Clause.
1. The mute button may be pressed only by the holder of the remote, and only during commercials, when the telephone rings, or when Mom says "Frank" in a certain voice.
2. Any party may request a mute for the telephone. The holder must grant it.
3. Muting another party's program as a joke is a violation, and the penalty is that your next program gets muted for the same length of time, by them, whenever they want.

Article VI. Channel Surfing.
1. The holder of the remote may change channels freely during his or her own time, but may not pass more than ten channels in a row without stopping on one for at least thirty seconds.
2. Nobody surfs during somebody else's time. Not even "just to check the score." Especially not to check the score.
3. A program already in progress when a party walks into the room may not be changed until the next commercial. (This is the Pre-Existing Program Rule, a term I took from work.)

Article VII. The Batteries.
1. The remote takes two AA batteries. Spare batteries are kept in the kitchen drawer, left side, behind the twist ties.
2. Whoever is holding the remote when it dies replaces the batteries, without discussion, and without first shaking it, pounding it on the arm of the couch, or pointing it harder at the set.
3. No party shall take the batteries out of the remote to put them in a Game Boy, a flashlight, a radio, or anything else, at any time, for any reason.
4. Whoever uses the last two spare batteries writes "AA" on the grocery list on the refrigerator. The list is the list.

Article VIII. The Demilitarized Zone.
1. The middle cushion of the sofa is a demilitarized zone (see Annex B).
2. When nobody is using the television, the remote rests on the DMZ, face up, in plain sight.
3. The remote may not be kept in a pocket, under a leg, inside a pillowcase, or in any bedroom, and it may not be "put somewhere safe."
4. Nobody sits on the DMZ, except during Sunday family movies, when Stephanie sits there, because she is five and has to sit between her parents. In that case the remote goes to the arm of the sofa, also face up.

Article IX. Monday Nights.
1. On Monday nights, football and wrestling are on at the same time. Dad gets football on the living room set. Kevin gets wrestling on the kitchen set, with the sound low, subject to review by the Party of the Second Part, who has seen some of it and has opinions.
2. Kevin may come into the living room during his commercials to see the score. Dad may go into the kitchen during his commercials to see, quote, "what the big deal is."

Article X. Open Nights.
1. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday evenings are open, and the set goes to whoever claims it first, subject to homework.
2. Each party may nominate one new program of the fall season, which shall have first claim on its own time slot on an open night for a three-week trial. After three weeks the program either keeps its slot, by a vote of the household, or goes to the kitchen set.
3. Nominations: Mom, The West Wing (Wednesday at 8:00, starting September 22). Dad, none (he says football is enough). Kevin, none yet. Kristin, none yet. Stephanie nominated "the one with the purple dinosaur," which is not new, and which is not on at night, but which was entered into the record to keep the peace.

Article XI. Supper.
The set is off from the time Mom calls "Supper" until the last person is excused. There are no exceptions for the weather, the score, or "the good part."

Article XII. The World Series.
1. During the World Series in October, the living room set is on the game whenever a game is on, regardless of the day of the week, in exchange for which the Party of the First Part will watch one movie of the Party of the Second Part's choosing, on the VCR, for each game, after the Series is over.
2. If a World Series game falls on a Thursday, Article II prevails, unless it is Game 7, in which case the Party of the Second Part has generously agreed to "think about it."
3. Whatever happens in the Series, the Party of the First Part shall not use the words "my Royals" in the house until April.
4. The College World Series, here in Omaha every June, is covered by a separate agreement, to be negotiated in the spring.

Article XIII. Disputes.
1. A party who believes the treaty has been violated shall say so once, calmly, and not twice, loudly.
2. Violations are recorded by the Party of the First Part, on the web page, every night, with the time, the article, and the penalty.
3. The Party of the Second Part is the final authority on what the treaty means, including the parts the Party of the First Part wrote.

Article XIV. Term.
This treaty is in force from Sunday, September 19, 1999 until the end of the television season in May, and shall be renewed, amended, or thrown out at the kitchen table next fall, by which time, Beverly reminds me, it will be the year 2000, the television may or may not still work, and we will all have other problems.

Witnessed by Beverly's mother, by telephone from Lincoln, who said, "Good luck with that."
Stephanie voted twice. The second vote was not counted.

Annex A. The Week at a Glance.

Annex B. Map of the Living Room, Showing the DMZ.

Annex C. The Kitchen Set.
The 13-inch set on the kitchen counter, with the rabbit ears, is neutral territory, open to anybody, at any time, except during supper (Art. XI). It gets three channels well and two more if somebody holds the antenna. It has no remote, and therefore no disputes, and is the only peaceful television in the state of Nebraska.

Annex D. Definitions.
Holding the remote means having the remote in your hand or on your person. Having it on the DMZ is not holding it.
Commercial means a commercial. A "boring part" is not a commercial.
Checking the score means changing the channel, which see Article VI.
Act of God means a thunderstorm that knocks out the cable. No party may be blamed for an Act of God, even if he was the last one to touch the set.
"In a minute" has no fixed meaning under this treaty and may not be relied on.

Postscript. People ask me if a treaty is really necessary for a television. I'd say this: in the five nights since we signed, we have had nine violations, every one of them logged and settled, and not one slammed door. Last fall we had a slammed door about every other night. In my line of work, that's what you call a reduction in losses.

For the new shows themselves, Beverly reads the fall previews over at The TV Guide Grid Girl, which has fall 1999 season previews and weekly thoughts on the shows worth staying home for. That's where she found her nomination.