It was time to get my ex-husband’s name off my cable bill.
After a few years of seeing his name each month; then getting angry; then calling up RCN to remove him; and then being required to fax in the divorce decree, my wisdom teeth, and my dog’s DNA, I decided to open a new account.
Through this upgrade, I would lose the interview with U2 that I had saved to the pre-TiVo DVR. This was the reason I had held out on a new account. YouTube came to the rescue.
My next concern was two-fold: I needed only the NHL Channel and WETAUK—the local PBS affiliate’s Anglocentric offshoot.
Before I found hockey, I watched one thing—whatever British mystery I could find anywhere. This meant I saw a lot of commercials involving catheters, reverse mortgages, and devices for elderly people who fall down and/or lose things. This sometimes concerned me.
The advent of WETAUK meant that I could go to one commercial-free place to watch those who solve crimes with various British accents: the horticulturalists, the drunk women, the restaurateur, Brenda Blethyn and her hot sidekick, the bitter Scandinavian cop, the small-town inspector whose wife barely hides her contempt for him, the lonely misanthropic Oxford intellectual as an old man and a young man, the former partner of the lonely misanthropic intellectual and his brooding intellectual sergeant, the Belgian detective everyone knows, the old lady everyone knows, the divorced inspector who pines for his tough-as-nails co-worker, the private detective with the most adorable daughter in the world, the Venetian in Rome, the morose gentleman cop and his working-class sidekick, the war-time inspector, the widowed inspector and his swinging 60s partner, the ambitious DSI demoted in charge of unretired cold-case coppers, and the 1920s pistol-toting-airplane-flying-hard-drinking Australian lady detective (Otherwise known as my hero. I am sure she plays hockey.).
I blame my mystery fixation on Edward Gorey’s Masterpiece Mystery opening credits, which hooked me as a small child and never let go: Why is this glamorous woman fainting on the ledge of a creepy old castle (i.e., my dreamhouse)? Who is that guy in the cape? Can I wear a bat hat on my head and carry a fan that changes colors?
My customer service conversation went something like this.
“I watch two channels—WETAUK and the NHL channel. Do you have a package for just those two?”
She and her Boston accent paused. For quite a while.
Turns out, I also needed CSN if I wanted to watch the Caps games.
Meanwhile, TiVo insists on taping programs with no relation to British mysteries or hockey, such as FOX news and the daughter-in-peril-of-the-week on Lifetime. And no, it wasn’t Paulina Gretzky.
But while scrolling past Mother May I Sleep With Danger, I was shocked, shocked to find that my TiVo, on its own accord, did record the best movie in the world. TiVo, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.