The (Pathetic) Cable Report

It's been two weeks since I upgraded our household to Expanded Cable and so far, here's what's happened:

AT&T decided to hold on to my land line for dear life (or long enough to bill me for another cycle) despite the fact that I authorized the release to Comcast three weeks ago. Since cell phone service in my home stinks, there hasn't been much in the way of telephone communication. Meanwhile, I'm certain that my text charges will be at an all time high.

It took my mother exactly one day to bring down the whole cable system. She mistakenly picked up the wrong remote (there are only 42 of them now...) and jabbed at it repeatedly. We lost channels, volume, everything. Fortunately, she has a daughter who is very tech savvy. Unfortunately, that daughter lives in the Bay Area and this daughter had to curse her way through the process.

Despite having a comprehensive line-up of childrens' programming, Ben's watched all of one show. Actually, it's the same show over and over and over. The one that comes on at 7:00am and allows me to have 30 minutes to change my clothes three times, try out three lipsticks, put my hair up, take it down, select a necklace, decide on earrings instead, blend a protein shake with the lid off, curse loudly, slam down a cup of coffee, break a plate, burn an english muffin, unwrap a Zone bar, and forget to brush someone's teeth (his or mine) adequately prepare for the day.

The DVR sits untouched. I haven't recorded one episode of anything. After all these years of longing for a DVR, the one I now own is very useful as an added surface to toss one of our many remotes onto.

Showtime entertained me late one night when I couldn't sleep with the movie, "Sea of Love." Ellen Barkin is smokin' hot. I first saw that movie before I was a single mom. Now it has an entirely new meaning although I doubt that my ex would stalk any guy I date and cut him into small pieces. But it did get me thinking about the inverse situation with an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend. Clearly, I should have tuned into The Nature Channel that night.

Speaking of The Nature Channel, we have so much wholesome programming that it's a little nauseating: The Discovery Channel, The History Channel, The Outdoor Channel and The Spanish Channel. But the only channel that I want to dial into is the one that has the Housewives of all major cities and those Kardashian girls. But I can't find it in the line-up.

To my dismay, Rachael Ray has practically taken over Food Network. She needs to go away. Bring back Nigella!

To my further dismay, the Style Channel has disappeared. Gone.

So that's the cable re-cap, thus far.

Of course, the whole investment would be worth every penny spent if I could just catch one episode of "Mad Men," Season 4. That Don Draper is damn elusive. Perhaps that's why I love him so much.

Even "Weeds" doesn't release its next season until August. August!

So maybe the whole cable thing is overrated. Maybe I haven't been missing much all along. Maybe someone will comment here and tell me where to find the Housewives. Maybe the DVR will magically program itself to spit out multiple episodes of Dr. Oz.

Maybe I'll just take one more look through the channels before I go to bed.