In the second of my hopefully continuing annual columns about what I got for my birthday (it’s not too late, you still have time to send in your gift!), I need to tell you about a pet peeve which I have fed and watered for years.

It’s called TVIPS, or “TVs in Public Spaces.”

Have you ever visited a doctor’s waiting room, car dealership, airport concourse, the only restaurant for miles around, or any bar anywhere? A wall-mounted television is always there, and it’s always on. It’s never playing something cool, like a rerun of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Instead, your visual field becomes hostage to some random sporting event, inane talk show, or newscast from the network you despise.

No one is ever paying attention to the screen, but you can never relax, because the part of your brain that evolved to detect predator movement is constantly stimulated. And even if they are running “The Grapes of Wrath,” the volume is always set just below intelligible and just above ignorable.

My aversion to spectator sports (and my husband Jeff’s love for them) is such a dynamic in our marriage that Jeff performed an entire one-man play about it called “Out at Home.” Naturally, I avoid sports bars. When one of them has fallen into the “only restaurant for miles around” category, I have come scarily close to hurling my coffee mug like I was Aroldis Chapman and the TV monitor was a catcher’s mitt.

What has this got to do with my birthday, you ask?

After last year’s Barbie movie, my daughter gifted me with a reproduction of my childhood doll, dressed in the black sequined gown I had coveted through years spent playing the Barbie game. This year, my son presented me with a universal remote control.

It turns off any TV you point it at.

Who would have guessed that during all the teenage years when I thought they were shunning me, they were actually becoming experts on my personality?

Obviously, I won’t be taking it to Sporty’s during Seahawks or Mariners games this fall. Ditto for Huskies/Reign/Sounders/Storm/Kraken action. For that matter, I’m not brave enough to bring it to any televised sporting events; if I’m destined to be torn apart by lions, I’d rather they be from Kenya than Detroit.

What I have in mind is something like this true story:

A friend of my daughter’s once worked in a sushi restaurant, where the wait staff bickered so much over what to play on the TV mounted over the counter that the manager began locking the remote in the safe when he left for the day.

One day it was tuned to a nature channel. Sounds like a safe choice, right? But in the middle of the program, an infomercial promoting an acne medication “popped” onto the 77-inch screen. What happened next probably made the clientele swear off sushi for the rest of their lives.

Looming above the heads of the prep chefs were hi-definition zits the size of basketballs. The staff didn’t realize what was happening until they saw all the patrons staring upward in horror. As a gigantic hypodermic syringe approached the pustule, a busboy hurriedly dragged over a stepladder and hoisted up an empty drink cup box in an attempt to cover the scene. Meanwhile, a waiter scrambled for the telephone to call the manager for the combination to the safe.

If I had been there at that fateful hour, I could have ducked into a nearby phone booth, donned my matte-black cape, and leapt out shouting, “This looks like a job for… Screensaver!” Unslinging my trusty universal remote, I would have taken aim and saved not only the day, but the appetites of the clientele and the rest of that week’s receipts.

So if you’re ever watching television in a place of business instead of doing it at home like a normal person, and the screen suddenly goes blank, don’t bother checking over your shoulder.

Because I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be everywhere. Wherever hungry people need to eat in peace, but the restaurant manager has locked up the remote, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop show where the cop is beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. You’ll never know it’s me… but I’ll be there.

Cindy Hoyt is The Beachcomber’s occasional humor columnist — just don’t call her occasionally humorous.