Just another Friday night…

~ Live & Learn

  • 8:05 pm. I arrive at home, 15 hour day. ooooooo, how do you spell, e-n-o-u-g-h…
  • 8:10 pm. Sitting at kitchen table. Thai takeout. Cold. Sticky rice, stucky rice.
  • 8:15 pm. Susan fussing with remote and TV. “Bloody cable box must be broken.”
  • 8:16 pm. DK: “No, must be the TV.  It’s time for one of those new 8K T.V.s.”
  • 8:17 pm. SK: “Are you out of your mind?”
  • 8:17 pm. She continues fussing with remote.
  • 8:18 pm. I’m picking at the cold rice which is slathered with Duck sauce.
  • 8:19 pm. I google Cablevision to see if there are outages. Widespread outages since 7:49 pm.
  • 8:20 pm. DK: “Why don’t you google it?”
  • 8:21 pm. SK: “I’m not googling anything. You google it.”
  • 8:22 pm. 36 years of marriage last week. I sit in silence and pick at the cold Garlic Chicken.
  • 8:23 pm. She reboots the cable box by powering it on and off. She waits for system to reset.
  • 8:26 pm. System resets.  She curses. Still no fix. She’s now irritated, advancing to angry.
  • 8:26 pm. She scurries over to the other room to test that TV.
  • 8:27 pm. She’s back. She’s isolated root cause to a cable problem.
  • 8:28 pm. She resets the entire T.V. to default settings. And waits and waits and waits.
  • 8:39 pm. It’s back up. No fix.
  • 8:40 pm. She runs downstairs to reset cable modem to reset the entire system.
  • 8:45 pm. Alarms beep. Entire system reboots.
  • 8:45 pm. I’m watching her with the remote, clutching a crucifix, whispering to herself.
  • 8:50 pm. Entire system reset. No fix.
  • 8:51 pm. DK: “Why don’t you google it?”
  • 8:52 pm: SK: “I’m not googling anything.”
  • 8:52 pm. She texts neighbor. To learn that neighbor has texted entire neighborhood.
  • 8:53 pm. Neighbor: “Cable out in three states CT, NY, NJ.”
  • 8:53 pm. Three states of cable addicts blitzing Cablevision 800 # and website.
  • 8:54 pm. I’ve moved onto dessert, continue watching this show. Who needs Broadway?
  • 8:55 pm. She googles Cablevision with her back to me. She finds number and dials. She’s on hold.
  • 8:58 pm. After being on hold for several minutes, she learns that it’s the wrong number.
  • 8:59 pm. She collapses onto couch, still clutching the remote.
  • 9:00 pm. I walk upstairs, looking over my shoulder. There she is, eyes closed, slumped on the couch. And I’m the one with problems?

Image & Story: Optimum customers report widespread outages (CtPost, September 6, 2019, 9:42 PM)

55 thoughts on “Just another Friday night…”

    2. Beth, clever woman you! I’m ALMOST thankful for not having had internet these last days….. so I can read all the comments – in my case with a glass of French Bordeaux (because I can and because I like….)!

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  7. This made me laugh. Around the same time as your take-out, hubby and I were enjoying foot long shish taouk sandwiches while watching an episode of Father Brown. What would you have watched had the cable been on?

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  9. We have a TV show down under called ‘Goggle Box’ and it’s basically just someone filming random families at home watching TV shows! It’s quite insane really, but if I do watch it, I laugh as I see exactly what we say and do in our own homes!? You two could def start your own show ha! 😝 Congrats on 36yrs too, that’s quite something to be proud of!! 👏👏

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  10. Happy Anniversary! 36 years here, too. I carefully skip any clever, intriguing, educational tv shows to find something he won’t sneer at, and he’s snoring by Minute Two.. *sigh. Men.

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  11. oh that made me laugh out loud. Not because I have ‘that’ problem, not having TV we go for other (our own) soap operas…. BUT on 3 or 4 days of this past week, I had intermittently WiFi contact, or none, telephone cut, then not, couldn’t load anything before it all went off again, I was cursed at because I couldn’t be reached on the phone….. it’s all the same – and of course, not having internet, you can’t look up WHAT the heck was on – or not!
    It’s ‘just’ the usual couple sparring and after 36yrs (happy anniversary you two lovebirds!) it’s only expected that things go a bit sour at times… in fact, YOU could have been Hero Husband, coming back from Switzerland and I wd have been Susan!

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  12. He is here (sort of…. but that’s another tale) between Friday 11pm and Sunday 3pm – and I start seriously regretting calling him Hero Husband (because I thought he was when he absolutely wanted to marry me….)

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  13. Actually, yesterday we watched (enfin, finally) part of the ‘final season of Mad Men’ – yesssss – and tonight it’s going to be the final, final end of the final season. We’re not asking for much but having had a ‘pause’ the ‘last but final season’ of some two years or so, we have forgotten so much of the show that we rediscover minute by minute…. modest people we are.

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  14. I wouldn’t go that far as to say that it makes our lives better. And we are so NOT into all of that content. But at the time we could get the DVDs, everybody talked about MM and it makes us laugh. That should count for something. But I agree that there are far more enjoyable TV shows we also still haven’t seen.
    Still – we’ll watch them and then give them away – no keeper.

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  16. Eleven years ago I was on probation for a drug charge. Behind my probation officers desk was a bulletin board, and on the bulletin board there was something called A Recovering Ragers Creed. For domestic violence offenders I suppose.
    Anyway, I snagged it because , well, despite my seemingly good nature there is a bitter angry resentful little six year old that specializes in seething and stewing and thinks he is always right living in my head .
    I hung it up on my bulletin board at work. Over the last 11 years it has gotten buried under sticky notes, phone lists, endless streams of updated “Mission Statements” but I really have learned to practice some of these principles in all my affairs.
    The lady I work with comes to me every now and then to complain about her husband. Last year she was telling me about some incident, and it reminded me of the Ragers Creed. I started peeling back all the layers until I reached the list. Its written kind of like the 12 Steps. I handed it to her.
    “Oh” she said “This is WONDERFUL! I’m going to post it on the refrigerator for John”
    I was horrified.
    “No” I said. “This is for you. You have to work on John from here” and I put my fist to my chest.
    She hung it up at her desk.
    So, the list…I paraphrased it somewhat so that it covers not just family members. I share it whenever I get a chance.
    https://srevestories.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-ragers-creed.html

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