Who Needs TiVo?

Last weekend was a busy one, the kind that leaves one exhausted beyond belief by time Sunday night rolls around.

Late Sunday evening, after ridding myself of the migraine that invaded my territory by downing half a triangular-shaped pill and sleeping for one hour, I headed over to my parents house to visit with my mom.

As we sat, each curled up on the end of one of her sofas, going over the weekend happenings, we realized that it was nearing nine o'clock, better known as "Sunday night TV-viewing time".

"Are you taping Desperate Housewives?" I ask, as my parents still make good use of the VHS tapes that have now become antiquated to most of the general population. I am the first to benefit from their attention to taping and this is not a privilege that I take for granted, no siree.

"Just holler up to Dad and he'll get the tape going for us" my mom tells me.

So, I do. And mom and I continue our chatting until we're all caught up on each other's lives before I head on back home.

Wednesday night we celebrated Wyatt's birthday with the usual family dinner, presents and cake. After our guests had gone home, I was standing over a sink full of soapy water cleaning wine glasses as Brett read to the kids upstairs. The phone rang.

It was my dad.

"I'm calling to apologize" he said.

"Apologize for what?"

"I destroyed the tape."

"What tape?"

"The Desperate Housewives tape from Sunday. I taped Boston Legal over it, so I'm calling to apologize, I am so sorry."

I assured him that it was no big deal, after all, my life does not revolve around television shows, especially those ABC ones. And then I asked him what I missed.

As I scrubbed the spots from the wine glasses and wiped down the kitchen counters, my dad gave me the full low-down on what took place on Sunday's episode. Susan asked Bree for the name of her gynecologist (you know, for her fake pregnancy) and Bree gave her the name of the first OB/GYN she pointed to in the phone book, thus sending Susan into the ghetto to a horrible doctor. Gabby's husband confronted Carlos about when she cheated on him, eluding to the fact that he would never stand for that kind of behavior. Bree's daughter had placenta previa, but was doing fine. Julie and the new girl did some snooping around. Something happened with Lynette too, but I've already forgotten.

Point is, my Dad gave an excellent blow-by-blow account of a television show that I would have spent one hour of my life watching. His details were precise and he only covered the important stuff, omitting all the added "fluff" and of course, there were no commercials.

I'm thinking of making up an excuse to miss this week's show so that I can get my dad's version instead because really, who has time for all this TV anyway?