Cable Lust

My house is the Bermuda Triangle of cable.

I've never seen Project Runway.

I've heard of the Real Housewives of New Jersey, but don't know what all the hype is about.

I've been spared the Jon and Kate Plus 8 reality disaster.

But I'm not happy about it.

Every year a plucky new cable installer knocks on our front door and extols the virtues of digital television. Every year we try to explain that our house is where cable waves go to die. And yet we wind up opening our door and saying to the perennial, confident, not quite battle worn cable installer, "Do your worst."

After whizzing and whirring machines measure this or that wavelength, a shimmy is made up the power line, and various cords are tested, the cable guy inevitably returns to us, eyes round and head shaking back and forth, "I've never seen anything like it."

So you can imagine what a treat it was a couple weekends ago when my in-laws came over to babysit and we were wild and child-free in Minneapolis for a whole night. Not only would we get to go out to dinner without having to worry about our daughter climbing over the booth into the other patrons' laps, but we were also able to see a comedy act AND watch cable tv in the hotel room. A trifecta.

Dinner was divine. The comedy club was halfway funny, enough to put us in high spirits. But the cable. What is UP with cable tv?

The commercials are. Well. Weird.

That guy selling some sort of food chopper? He actually said, "You're gonna love my nuts." The guy with the super sharp knife? He cut a pineapple in midair. In slow motion. Okay, cool, but, seriously? Is that the selling point? Buy this knife for all of your midair pineapple cutting needs? Then there was the guy who said all of your car troubles could be handled with a paint pen. Keyed car? Paint pen. Runaway grocery cart? Paint pen. Won't start? Paint pen.

I don't know. Maybe we're not missing all that much after all.