Come and join me there, making sure you update your bookmarks and re-direct your readers. Also, if you are so inclined, it would be great if you could be my friend!
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This is the man that I am married to.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love him, I adore him, and I will stand by my statement: Marrying Mr. Spit was, by far, the smartest thing I ever did.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love him, I adore him, and I will stand by my statement: Marrying Mr. Spit was, by far, the smartest thing I ever did.
But, this man.
He likes his consumer electronics. Well, I do too, but he really likes them. As in – ask if he wants to be alone, get nervous – like.
Which means that we have to get new stuff. Especially new AV stuff. A lot. With alarming frequency.
Let me explain my relationship to TV this way: When we were first married, we had cable so that I could watch West Wing. The problem with our cable was that you had to pay them by cheque. I had to write a cheque and mail it every month. And you know how likely that was to happen. (If you manage to write a cheque for something every month, be quiet. You make the rest of us feel bad)
They shut my cable off. They shut my cable off in August. I noticed, just before the season premiere of West Wing, in November. . .
This time last year, the mister announced that we were buying a new, ginormous, whizz-bang TV. It would have Acronyms! and Ports! and Buttons! and Screens! and Sizing Options! It was large and black and shiny, and came in a huge box that I had to help carry, and get this readers, it was $700! For a TV. To replace a TV that already worked! Then we had to buy Cables! and an UpConverter! and a Remote! And West Wing is off the air, so I don’t care!
So, we bought the TV. And a new DVD. And there were boxes! There are 5 boxes, with blinking lights under this TV! It’s like a runway. Frankly, I’ve seen server racks running entire corporations with have fewer lights.
The modem downstairs has something to do with the television. And when my dadgum phone rings, the TV tells me who is calling!
Readers, do any of you remember how you used to know who was calling you? You picked up the phone! And you said Hello! And someone said “It’s your mother”. (Or the Cable Company). And what the heck does your phone and TV have to do with each other anyway?
But all of that matters not, because I couldn’t turn it on. No, I’m not kidding. I paid for the TV. The DVD, the buttons, the cables, the acronyms, and all of those cables back there (I’ve seen better organized spaghetti in a colander). Every month, I watched money leave my account to pay for acronyms, and to have my TV tell me who was calling.
Or rather, that’s would would have happened, but I couldn’t turn the TV on.
I must protest. I have a University Degree. I did some really freaking hard economics. I can talk about hegemonic stability theory. I know from a priori evil, but I can’t turn my TV on. Do you know how to feel stupid? Be unable to turn your TV on, when a 5 year old can.
You pick up the remote and wave it around. It asks you what you want to do. No really, it asks. You tell it “Watch TV”. It goes through screens, while I sit in my chair, yelling. No, not that. No, not that either. I pay how much for static? Not the play station screen with the folding proteins. The play station screen is purgatory. I hit random buttons for random time, and then the gods of videogaming will grudgingly let me out. Maybe.
This process, which takes me 15 minutes, well it works. Oh, not well. But, eventually.
So, what does Mr. Spit do to celebrate this new-found achievement of mine? Ahh, yes.
He gets a new remote.
