A few years ago, my hubby told me he wanted to get TiVO. I thought that was a horrible idea. He was crazy! His entertainment system was so confusing to the untrained technophobes that visit, that I actually created a detailed instruction list, complete with digital pictures of which remote to use in what order. (Who am I kidding? It’s confusing to anyone the first time you see it.) And, now, he wants to add another piece of equipment to the mix!? Who cares about recording shows? What’s wrong with live TV…I mean, if there are no commercials, when would you go to the bathroom?
Little did I know how foolish and naïve I was being.
Fast forward to the present…
TiVO how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
The thought of sitting through a live TV show is almost as painful as using dial-up to check your email. Ack! I’ve become such a spoiled brat when it comes to the TV that it’s not even funny. I can honestly say that we watch less TV and more shows. How is that even possible?
I vaguely remember the days of trying to rush home to see an episode of The X-Files and how I tried to plan my social life around certain shows, but tried to do it in a way that no one could tell that’s what I was doing. I get knots in my stomach just thinking about it. I remember waiting with bated breath to find out if those evil networks were going to pit any of my favorite shows against each other in the new line-up. You mean I have to choose between Ally McBeal and Will & Grace? Barbarians!
Growing up, we didn’t have cable, and my parents still don’t. We only had network television. My mom didn’t use the television as a babysitter, but we were allowed to watch some shows. Losing television privileges was one of her harshest disciplinary techniques.
In our house, ABC was channel 5; CBS was channel 8; PBS was channel 11; NBC was channel 13, and FOX was channel 17. To this day, that’s how I think of the channels. I’ve even been known to say, “Oh, Thirteen is showing a special on channel 9…” Of course, with TiVO, you just click on it and it plays. You don’t have to remember the channel or the day or the time or when a show will actually play in the Mountain Time Zone. Who knew life could be so painless?
Claire is never going to know what it’s like to hold it until a commercial break. She’s never going to have to suffer the Wrath of Dad because she was talking through an important part of a show. She’s never going to have to secretly schedule her life around a show. She can never be threatened with truly missing a show because she chose to be naughty. She’s going to think her parents lived in such an old-fashioned time. She’s going to think we actually had to write real letters to people and had to do our research in a Library.
And, yes, getting TiVO has made the act of “turning on the TV” a little more difficult, but not any more that it already was in our house. As overheard in our entertainment room, one of our friends to another, “Dude, do you know how to turn on the TV?”
“Are you kidding? I don’t work at NASA.”
sent to your Email
