Redundant TV

From the time I met Steve, almost 12 years ago, we have not paid for cable TV. Now, in my old life, pre-Steve, that wouldn't not have meant we did not get cable. It would have meant one of our friends had "hooked" us up for free.

With Steve it means we only get the TV channels a set of rabbit ears will pull in.

There is a reason behind us not having cable, well two actually. The first is cost, the second is Steve is addicted to TV. He will watch ANYTHING. He will spend his entire weekend and every evening glued to the most boring crap in the world. He tries to blame it on not having access to TV as a child. I think it is his form of escapism; like my reading.

While I enjoyed cable when I had it, I no longer miss it. In fact, I've grown to almost hate our TV all together. It's like the loud, obnoxious, and stinky old relative that visits and never leaves. My dislike of TV has been aided by both my husband and my son.

Steve can not stand to watch a commercial. Any time a commercial comes on he will start surfing our 7 channels trying to find something to watch until the commerical is over. What happens is that he will end up watching pieces of 2 (maybe 3) different shows at a time. So if I walk into the living room and sit down, just as I begin to get some "buy in" to a show, he changes the channel. And there is no way to catch every piece of any show he ends up flipping back and forth too. You are always left in the dark.

And my son? Well, as any mother of children can tell you he watches a movie to death. Then he resurrects it and watches it again, and again, and again. And that's only the first day. I've seen each movie Will owns so many times I can quote the dialogue as I'm working on the computer and hear it in the back ground. That's something, seeing as he must have 200 VHS or DVDs.

With the new digital deadline coming up we had to get our converter boxes; which Thank God we got for free. When we installed them, we gained an extra 4 or 5 channels. One of them has become Steve's new favorite. It seems to have less commericals and it shows repeats of old shows Steve and I watched as kids. So Steve gets to set and watch the original NightRider, A-Team, Simon and Simon, and much more. He loves it.

I guess they are just getting started because the first week or so we received the channel it didn't have any call letters or a station name. Then it would just flash the letters RTN on the screen. Steve and I made a game out of trying to guess what the letters stood for. We agreed the end was definitely Television Network.

As it turns out, Steve was right. Our new channel is the Retro Television Network. I still think my name was more suitable; the Redundant Television Network.