Next in line: the DVR

Yesterday evening, we got in from picking my husband up from work and hurried to the living room to watch American Idol, which was taping on the DVR. My husband manned the clickers -- sometimes when I look at the vast array of remotes on the side table by his chair, I'm not sure if we're trying to watch television or fly a jet -- and turned on the TV, where we were greeted by an ominous blue screen.

"We did pay that bill, didn't we?" said my husband.

"Yes, we took it straight to the drop box at the Comcast office because it was due," I said, looking disconsolately at the TV screen.

The girls made various noises of displeasure while my husband did all the things you're supposed to do when the DVR takes a fit, as my great-grandma used to say. There was no response except that same maddening blue screen, taunting us with the knowledge that we had totally missed David Cook's performance, and Brooke's and Jason's.

Aisling dug Pirates of the Caribbean I out of the DVD drawer and put it in, but even Johnny Depp failed to reconcile me to missing those performances,

There was a toll-free customer service number we could call, so my husband telephoned this morning, handing the phone off to me when he'd been on hold so long, his Social Security nearly kicked in. Thankfully, I wasn't on the phone long, but I was on long enough for a Comcast agent who was suffering from some dreadful nasal congestion (I kept having to say "What? I'm sorry....what?") to tell me that the earliest a service person can come to replace our DVR is FRIDAY MORNING between 8:00-12:00.

Although the way he actually said it sounded like, "I gan sed you ub wid an abboindmend on Friday bedween ade o'glock ad twelb o'glock."

"What? I'm sorry...what?"

When he finally made it clear that it was going to be two days -- TWO DAYS, in which my family is going to be missing Idol Gives Back tonight, the results show on Thursday and Survivor -- I said, appalled, "That's a very long time."

"I gan pro-rade your negxt bill do dat you wode have do pay for the days you ard receibing serbis."

"What? I'm sorry...what? Oh, thanks, never mind. Okay."

So now we can add our DVR to the list of Things That Have Irreparably Broken at our house in the past three weeks, the first two items being our computer (seven years old) and our minivan (ten years old; 153,000 miles) But do you know what I have to say about that?

WE DON'T HAVE TO PAY FOR A NEW DVR, HA HAHAHAHA HA HA HAHAHAHAAA!!!!