Bye bye, DirecTV
Television. It was a very exciting invention. When I googled “When was the television invented?” too many answers came up, so there will be no formal history lesson on the invention of the TV. I know you are very disappointed. Please forgive me.
My parents grew up with black-and-white TV. Can you imagine? No color? Only three or four channels? It is amazing how well that generation flourished, considering. Or, perhaps, it is a life lesson, but we won’t go into that now.
Husband #1 and I were raised with limited television privileges. I won’t speak for him, but I still remember that when my parents would go out, my brother and I would watch TV, and when we heard the garage door opening, we would quickly turn it off and then wipe our sleeves over it so the static shock would go away. I am sure my parents knew we were watching, but we were kids, and we thought we were very smart.
Fast-forward a couple of decades, and we put very few restrictions on television watching on our kids. I would like to point out that when you let your kids watch as much TV as they want, play with their Gameboys or psps whenever they want, they all turn out to be Oreos. None of them have televisions, watch television, or go near television (unless, of course, there happens to be a sporting event on while they are visiting, and then they will pretend to be talking to Husband #1, but will really be watching the game).
Yes, I know that this doesn’t always happen. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, and now I am addicted to Netflix. I walk around my house with my computer, doing laundry or cooking or vacuuming, all while watching my computer. Yes, it is sad, but it makes me happy, so it is really sad?
I did my time — I went to school, did homework, got a graduate degree, raised my kids. If I want to be addicted to Netflix, there is nothing wrong with that! (I will just keep telling myself that.)
In any event, we have always been a DirecTV Family. We have one of those satellite dishes on our roof. The whole nine yards. The most important part of having DirecTV was having the football package.
I am pretty sure that I have written about this before. Son #1 was a Minnesota Vikings fan. Son #2 was a St. Louis Rams fan (they have since moved back to Los Angeles, but not before we drove to their training camp on one of our baseball road trips. Yes, I am the best mom ever.) And Son #3 was a Carolina Panthers fan. Oh, and Husband #1 is a Giants fan.
No, I still am not sure why each of my sons cheered for a different team. But I can tell you that when their teams played each other, the son whose team was victorious would taunt the other son, and that never ended well for me. (Because it is all about me. And I am the referee and the one who would have to wake them up for school the next morning. Good times. No, really, they were good times, and they went by way too fast. And, thank God, no one ever needed stitches because of those “disagreements.”
Come football Sundays, with the football package, everyone could watch their team on a different television and I could be lying on the basement floor and no one would really care until it was time for dinner. But I digress.
A few months ago, or weeks ago, who knows, someone informed Husband #1 that we were paying way too much for DirecTv and for our internet and phone and that we should use Verizon for everything. Yes, we still have a landline. I just can’t give it up, even if the only calls we get on it are people asking for money.
Save money? But what about the football package? It was time to admit defeat. Our boys are not moving back here. They will not be sitting on the couch watching football with their father. They do, however, speak to him every day and learn Torah together, so that’s still something very special.
Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck is looking forward to babka-sitting for two of her pastries this weekend. Nothing better than driving out to the Island of Long three weekends in a row!
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