I’m watching Big Brother but I can’t focus because all I want in life is for CBS to replace it with a spin off called Little Brother: The Midget Season. When will the discrimination end? I’m so tired of giants! It’s not like I’m advocating any tossing challenges, so don’t get all high and mighty on me. 

As you know, I recently went through a period of abstaining from my habitual consumption of hours upon hours of fine TV viewing per night. It was a difficult adjustment that involved a lot of reading of books, gnashing of teeth, and contemplation of jumping out windows. But then I realized we only live on the second floor, and if I broke my ankle and was put on bed rest without having access to any Sheriff John Burnell TV entertainment, I’d really lose my mind.

So, being the Craig to my Kim that my beloved husband always is, he called up Direct TV and reinstated our service. His agreement to do so was predicated upon my solemn swear to limit what I watched and to try to keep it to Nova programming only.

As you can imagine it didn’t take long for him to get annoyed by the high pitched sounds of Sheriff John Burnell’s squad car and feral raccoon attack  shrieks. As I laughed and laughed like I had the extra chromosome, and the sirens and screams blared into his office, Brian picked up the phone, and in a sad, sad moment for the already-dwindling audience numbers of obscure police chase and animal attack shows, he cancelled our service yet again.

At first I was sad. Not nearly as sad as when the mama raccoon failed to get a tasty bite of flesh off the frantically running legs of the exterminator on Animal Exterminators, but my sadness level was pretty damn close.

Then, just when I thought my husband could wrong me no more, I walked out into the living room last night to behold a scene straight out of a meth lab bust on Cops. Only instead of meth lab-making paraphernalia, there was a veritable explosion of computer parts, wires, and technical garb, the likes of which would have given Bill Nye an orgasm. And there sat Brian in the middle of it all. Smiling up at me and covered in the detritus of his latest science experiment.

I ducked under wires, tripped over motherboards, and stared in wonderment at the suction cupped antennas attached to our walls, ceiling, and windows, and then, after taking pictures of this fine disaster, asked Brian what the heck he was doing now.

He grinned with pride, set down one of the three keyboards in his lap, and informed me that he was getting his fair bride TV…for free! My hero!

It doesn’t work yet, unless of course it’s supposed to be snowing inside Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment, but the sound quality is excellent. I enjoyed listening to Jerry and Elaine bicker for about half an hour, then in a twist of fate so divine, I realized I’d rather be reading a book. I only wish my beloved Burnell would publish a tome about the dangers of driving while showing off.

It’s Day 3 without TV and I have to admit that it just may be the best thing that’s happened to me since surviving the nudity orgy at the Korean Day Spa a couple of weeks ago. (I know what you’re thinking, “Aren’t most orgies nude?” Well, I don’t know, you sick perverts, I’ve never really been forced into one before and now that I don’t have Skinamax it’s unlikely I’ll be doing much research in that area.)

Our TiVo has been annoyingly dramatic lately and it’s not just because of all the Lifetime movies I’ve recorded. Or maybe it is. In any case, it finally shut down for the last time after choking and squealing like Farrah Faucet’s husband in The Burning Bed.

Bri was more excited and unable to hide it than a Pointer Sister as he finally had an excuse to take the digital recorder apart. He loves nothing more than disassembling things, with perhaps the exception of not putting things back together.

I was thinking to myself how weird it is that all guys love to do this and that all guys inevitably end up leaving sharp foreign objects and cables on the floor that will stay there for up to five months at a time. Brian morphed into Bill Nye and popped it open and was performing complicated surgery on stuff when I finally discovered what was so great about taking things apart.

There, before me, was this fascinating little Star Tours city of microchip nuggets and a New York style city grid with green triangular park space and high rises. I stared in wonderment at…the motherboard. I used to inspect the ones in my dad’s office when I was a kid, but I had forgotten how awe-inspiring they are. How can all those weird little bits and pieces produce Walker Texas Ranger?

After an hour of examining this fascinating invention I realized a few things: (1) Motherboards are the coolest things ever and (1A) I am obviously a huge nerd (2) How strange it is that the nucleus of my TiVo appears so complicated while the human brain appears to be nothing but a blob, but then I reminded myself that a blob created this fine technology and (3) and most importantly, I realized that my blob does not need any more interaction with this particular form of technology.

Not only was I aware that it was slowly erasing my time, memory, and ability to distinguish whether or not it would be a good idea for me to order a twenty dollar German engineered towel, but I just didn’t trust such a tricky newfangled contraption. Perhaps it was the Amish in me, but I suddenly realized that I would rather pluck a chicken than waste another hour of my life watching the eighteenth rerun of that Walker episode where the steroid-abusing muscleheads give that anti-drug presentation at that high school? Yeah, I just couldn’t take it anymore. It was too confusing.

One minute these dudes were shooting each other in the ass with human growth hormone and the next they were bitching about crack while they ripped drug metaphor steel handcuffs in half with their preternatural strength. The mixed messages were killing me. It was the same with Oprah. One day everyone was dying of anorexia and the next day she was doing a show about fatties being too fat. Which is it? Anne or Margaret?* (*Fletch reference for the lame man.)

Who knows what all that space age gadgetry shit is doing in that TiVo box if not hypnotizing me into watching yet another Magic Jack infomercial. I just don’t trust small things and the motherboard has small things in abundance. It must have been made by Keebler elves or midgets. Maybe that’s why I’m always craving EL Fudge cookies.

Clearly the TiVo was not safe. There was just no other way to account for the fact that I had no self control when it came to my TV consumption habits. Why I am a beacon of self-restraint. I usually eat only one tub of Cool Whip at a time and have been known to go days without dipping into my miniature pharmacy (if I’ve set pills aside ahead of time).

That little silver TiVo box contained too many unanswered questions: What exactly were all those little nuggets doing in there? Why was there a baby abacus inside? Why was there perfect intricacy throughout, each nugget in its nugget place, but then giant blobs of white goo pushed into certain parts? How did Walker get through the cables? Do you like to hang around the gymnasium, Timmy?* (*Airplane! reference for the extra lame man.) Have you ever seen a grown man naked?* (*That’s just me being creepy.)

I convinced Bri to stop fixing the hard drive and together we bid adieu to Mangum and Walker. TV had become my nighttime addiction and I was finally sick to death of it.

Since we got rid of our TV I have become more productive than June Cleaver on meth. This may have something to do with the fact that I rewarded myself by giving up my TV vice by reacquainting myself with my copious amounts of caffeine vice, but in any case, I had the whole apartment spic and span, reorganized, and gorgeously put together by the end of the first night.

We’ve been living in our new apartment longer than the gestation period of a mid-sized marsupial and yet I had been living out of boxes the whole time because I simply had too many shows to watch to bother with unpacking. No more.

I emptied everything out into a giant landfill of clothes in the living room and went to work on that shit like a proctologist in the lab. Within hours everything was color coded, folded into origami swans, and placed in freshly cleaned drawers. I hadn’t been that proud since the day I found out my little brother did not actually have the extra chromosome.

I’ve read a book a night, started painting again, and even running on the beach. Well, technically, I more or less run with intermittent periods of jogging, then walking, then crawling and eventually sprawling on the sand frightening seagulls with my asthmatic death rattle, but still, I’d say I’m on the road to athleticism at this point. By next week I may even take up the luge, extreme ironing, hot air ballooning, or taxidermy. Who knows? Maybe all take up all four. At once. Anything’s possible. I might stop subsisting on Cool Whip and start cooking. Perhaps strawberry Jell-O with Cool Whip.

Anyway, I was pretty sure I’d be openly weeping after the first hour of TiVo abstinence, but it turns out I feel better than ever. It’s like I’ve swallowed a bottle of antidepressants, a pot of coffee, and gazed at frolicking puppies while eating abundant amounts of chocolate cake. I mean, I always imagined that I could be more productive, but my fear of crack just kept getting in the way. Who knew I could get so much done and still not have to sell my body to smoke sweet rocks?

I keep thinking I can watch all the TV I want when I’m old and decrepit. I can attach a flat screen to the tray on my Rascal wheel chair someday, but for now, as long as I can help it, I need to make up for lost time.

I know Dr. Phil might hunt me down and kill me, perhaps head butting me with his shiny cranium then stabbing me in the eye with his sharp mustache, while lecturing me with painful Southern slowness, but I can’t help stating that the world would be a better place if everyone took their TiVos off life support.

Last night I watched five hour-long episodes of Locked up Abroad on the National Geographic channel before my TiVo committed suicide again. It keeps making these exasperated sounds (like how I imagine the robot from Short Circuit would squeal if someone was trying to murder him) before it freezes and shuts down, leaving me to scream at the ceiling and rip apart cables with my teeth. Perhaps the rage-induced cable biting is not helping, but if I get electrocuted at least I might pass out and get some sleep.

I thought my insomnia sucked after I got all Courtney Love and had to perform an intervention on myself to get off the Ambien. Insomnia without sleep aids is one thing, but insomnia without TiVo, well that’s just torture. Maybe not Locked up Abroad trying-not-to-drop-the-soap-in-a-communal-cockroach-infested-shower-in-a-Mexican-prison type torture, but still, it’s pretty rough.

I mean what else am I supposed to do with all my time besides feed my new docudrama addiction? I am obsessed with this show. It’s the best thing on TV since Arrested Development got pulled off the air. I can’t just stop watching it and what? Read books? Do something about the worm problem in my garden? Go buy some food so I can stop eating Cool Whip straight from the tub for dinner every night? Psh. I’d have to go outside to do that. Going outside is such a pain. Fresh air is for the birds. All I need is Nat Geo, my freshly Fabreezed couch, and a bucket of light dessert topping – the light part makes it healthy. Is that too much to ask for, God? Really?

Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, Lord. You can stop right now. I’m not going to get all Sara Pallin about my broken TiVo. You’re not going to convince me that I know somewhere deep down in my sleep-deprived soul that my perpetually breaking TiVo is a sign from you, Holy Father, that I am wasting my life and should finish writing my book already and/or build an oil pipeline through Alaska. I won’t even admit it’s a sign you really want me to stop recording two shows an hour before my TV explodes and shoots across the living room, paralyzing me with digital shrapnel.

Listen here, God. I have important work to do and it’s called Learning How to Avoid Becoming a Drug Mule While Traveling Abroad and Educating Myself on Escape Strategies Should I Get Kidnapped by Terrorists and Chained to a Floor in India.

Also, there are 87 upcoming episodes of Magnum P.I. that need to be watched. Who else is going to stay up all night gazing at Sellick’s hairy legs revealed so sexily in his daisy dukes? Who else is going to shun ShamWow! infomercials to investigate my theory that Higgins is wearing a thong under his khakis?

I can ask myself only one question in this dire situation and it’s not why I’m here or what my purpose in life is. Obviously I already know that. What I need to know now is: How do I get my TiVo to stop breaking?