DVR Where art Thou?

Remember when I canceled cable? That was a hoot.

I don't know if I've ever missed anything as much as I miss my TV and my DVR right now. I once had to convalesce from an illness for a long time, and I didn't miss walking as much as I miss my TV right now. You know how when you have a really bad cold and you can't breathe through your nose and you think to yourself "I will never take breathing for granted again!" I miss my TV more than breathing. God, I'm a shit head.

Tonight, after dinner, we all settled in to watch some TV. We started with the end of 60 Minutes. Fine. Then, I clicked on the guide, and scrolled through the options. There was nothing but crap. My mom kept saying, "You're going too fast!" but my feeling is, if you're driving past a steaming pile of skunk, fast is the way to go. My parents have a lot of QVC and public access channels right in the middle of their line up; there's no mystery there.

I come to rest on the second half of the Dick Van Dyke Show, which will be followed by M*A*S*H. Then my mom goes, "What's on 56?" I'd seen it in the line up: Larry King was coming back from the grave to interview Johnny Depp about his new movie, followed by... Piers Morgan. We agree, mercifully, that we don't really care what Johnny Depp has to say about anything. My dad says, "Check 32." and there's some old black and white version of Little Shop of Horrors. We go back to Dick Van Dyke. Then, after 4 seconds, my mom says, "Do we really want to watch this?" and we're all quiet, trying to ignore her, and just watch Laura Petrie do her thing. 10 seconds later, she says again, "Are we really watching this?" and my arm flies from its place at my side and I shoot her the remote and say, "clearly, you don't. So here you go, you decide."

She changes the channel to 2, and goes one by one through all the channels, the jewelry sales, the local education channel, Jersey Shore, and, lo and behold, there's nothing on. We travel to the channels beyond the Dick Van Dyke Show, and land on a channel that is playing Grumpier Old Men. There are commercials on, though, so we watch the commercials. One after the other, commercials. I am looking at my husband who is glued to his iPhone playing Words With Friends, and my dad who is watching the commercials, and no one will look at my face and confirm my disbelief that a Geico commercial is better than Dick Van Dyke.

Finally I say, "Why are we watching commercials?" and I'm informed that we are waiting for Grumpier Old Men. We couldn't wait the ten minutes through Dick Van Dyke to get to M*A*S*H*, but ten minutes of commercials are fine.

I retire to the bedroom, where I am now, writing this. I love my parents. Truly. But I do not love watching TV with them. There is only one queen of the remote, and it is I, and twas ever thus.