From “The Shining,” ©1980 Warner Bros

“91% of families fight over the remote.” So says Logitech in a study carried out last November. Among the findings, “72% of people have fallen out or argued over a remote control, 12% have thrown one and 7% have actually physically fought over one.” What’s got everyone so riled up about having total control over the TV?

Yesterday, the Saudi Gazette reported a married couple of three years ended their relationship over remote control “discord.” The husband filed for divorce after insisting his “own control over the remote control.”

Divorce over a remote control — yikes. But considering some other possible outcomes of an epic fight over the remote control, perhaps a divorce is getting off easy:

• After a 911-call about a violent argument over the TV in which a Waupun woman threw the remote at her boyfriend, the man punched the reporting police officer in the face, landing him a free vacation behind bars.
• In Minneapolis, a woman stabbed her boyfriend in the gut after disputing whether the couple was to watch a movie or a music video.
• In Hudson, Wisconsin, a 50-year-old man pushed her physically disabled wife into a wall after she turned off the TV on him.
• Have you heard about the Arlington woman who sliced open her boyfriends hand with a knife?
• Or the 10-year-old boy in Lucknow, who killed another 10-year-old boy with his brother’s pistol.
• In Hyderabad, an engineering college lecturer took her own life by hanging after her husband ignored her request to fix the remote.
• Another suicide occurred in New Delhi when a 20-year-old man hung himself after fighting with his brother over the remote.
• A Beijing man accidently killed his 12-year-old son with a broomstick while trying to put an end to a dispute between him and his younger brother over the remote.
• There have even been eerie encounters (of the supernatural kind?) when it comes to electronic death threats over who or what has control over this family’s living room.

I didn’t set out to write the most depressing blog post about TV remotes — ever, but this is the world we live in. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt/kill us be a bad thing if we all came up with some self-affirmations to help calm down during commercial breaks. With the Halloween season of constant horror movies upon us, we might think twice before flipping that station.

Don’t touch that dial. No, seriously.