A Love Story

August 2008 I went through a bad breakup. I didn’t want to end the relationship, I was happy with our arrangement. But I was out of work and my significant other was demanding in a monetary way. I couldn’t afford our liaisons any longer. So I made the call.

It ended abruptly. There were no tears, I wouldn’t allow myself to cry and my paramour seemed unfazed. A while later the day I was dreading came. The van parked in the street, I heard the ladder rattling as it was leaned against the telephone pole. A few minutes later it was done. My cable had been turned off.

The months ahead were dark. I railed at the sun, the moon and the stars. I mourned the loss of ESPN and their bloated opinions of themselves. How would I survive without their misguided and self important predictions of the football playoffs? If I didn’t know what dirty job Mike Rowe was doing, how could I feel better about my job? I couldn’t feel superior if I didn’t have MTV and VH1’s bran cell killing line up of fetid egomaniacs to decry and ridicule?

No Phillies games, no North Carolina Tar Heels basketball and worst of all, no football. I was in a circle of Dante’s hell; the one I thought was saved for people who take 107 items through the express line at the grocery store. I tried to start another friendship with an indoor antenna, but it didn’t work out. I gave it $30 and received back 4 channels that didn’t always come in. It ended badly between us. The antenna still drunk dials me from time to time. Sad really.

I’m a TV guy, always have been. I used to do my homework after school while watching re-runs of Gilligan’s Island, Gomer Pyle, The Monkees, Get Smart and Hogan’s Heroes. If you’re one of those people who sniff, “I never watch TV, it rots your brain”, then bite me.

Just a few days ago cable TV sauntered back into my life dressed up like a cheap trick: half price for a full year. What did I do? I leapt on it like Rush Limbaugh on the liberal agenda.

Cable TV and I are once again in a symbiotic relationship. I pay my monthly bill and it gives me dozens of channels to surf through to satiate my appetite for entertainment, both good and bad, thought provoking and mindless. I am back to the comfort of the Law and Order chu chung, CSI: whatever city, poker tournaments and basketball games between two teams I know nothing about.

It’s good to be in love again.