Someone give me the strength.

In a recent effort to cut our living costs at home, my wife and I decided to genuinely endeavor to save money in multiple ways. Reducing our monthly burden involved canceling our Directv service. We were joining   “streaming” crusaders who had left cable and dish networks in their past. My stomach sank once the decision had been made- less live sports channels? No connection with live TV and perhaps lose contact with the outside world?!  Shit….this was not exactly what I had in mind but my wife was ADAMANT and of course If I wanted any lovin’ that evening I was forced to oblige.

So, later that afternoon I called DirecTV and before even mentioning any intention to cancel the service, they made me aware that any discounts and promotions on my plan had expired….just super. Apparently I had also been paying for the NFL league Ticket without evening knowing about it (If I had known I had it I could have watched two more Giants’ games this season) and that I am back to an “a la carte” style package. After a painful battle with the customer representative I managed to not only receive credit back for the NFL package, but was also able to reduce my upcoming bills substantially. All I had to do was step down to a lesser base package, cancel the sports package (tears included) and in doing so we lost some channeling options. So I figured this would be a big first step into the streaming world without giving up all live TV in one shot.

After arriving home that evening I immediately noticed that my wife was a bit flustered- two children fighting her in the usual homework wars, another child has flooded the bathroom from his bubble bath in an effort to give his navy seals action figures better cover in battle, and another is whistling so terribly out of tune that it actually created pressure on my cranium. I told my wife that I’d prepare dinner and ultimately made one of the better curry chicken soups if I might say so myself…

So, Now- the kids are in bed after explaining to them that calling each other asswipes and mangina is completely inappropriate, and they are finally silent. My wife and I plop ourselves in our respective places to lounge in the living room like dead bodies, and we turn on the TV. I knew the questions were coming. “Oh,Did you talk to Cable?” “What did they say?”. I explained the battle I had with Directv, and boasted about the returned credit and huge reduction in bills, although we had to give up a few channel options. My wife asked what we gave up and I told her a list of channels of which one was the Oprah channel. She looked straight out at the television, tried to get the Oprah channel and found it to be blacked out. She asked me if I was crazy- “do you know all the shows I tape on there?!!! And all the Dateline episodes are on there too!”.  She then went to bed a bit miffed with me, thus no sex for Daddy.  I thought to myself “we agreed to cancel everything just this morning, and now a lack of the Oprah channel killed my night”. “Thanks Mrs. Winfrey, you have all the fucking money in the world and now you “OWN” my bedroom too.”

10 minutes after my wife “retired” for the evening, I heard my 8 year old son wake up and vomit. I put him in the shower, threw his linens in the wash and stationed myself on bucket duty for the rest of the night. 5 wonderful sessions later, when we arrived at the “bile only” phase, I was thinking “Oprah…………..that bitch”.