I'm going to miss having a life

When John was a toddler, we decided to get all frugal and cut unnecessary expenses. So we shut off cable. At the time, I was a little bit devastated. I felt less hospitable without cable. My younger siblings sometimes came over, and it bummed me out that they wouldn't be able to crash in front of the Cosby Show. Eventually we just got used to it, though. My in-laws bought us an antenna for the house, so suddenly we had four, three, two (without snow) channels. Every one of our must-see shows are on ABC because of this. We simply didn't know about the others.

Well, thanks to a conspiracy between the government and the cable company, we're about to lose that. So we decided it's time, and got cable. The hook-up guy came when just the boys and I were home, and he can't possibly have ever seen three people more thrilled to see him. (Jake didn't care). Despite my internal drama over how I would continue to raise boys who like to play outside, and even read sometimes, I was mostly just anxious to find out what time Little House on the Prairie was on.

We've lived in cable bliss several days now, and we still manage to take showers and get our hours completed for the summer reading program, and - you know - work. So I think it's working out okay. It's the key to easily-pleased children really. Just deprive them for years and years and years. Suddenly Spongebob equals a little piece of heaven. And when I said of new phones and gaming systems that exist today, "There's a lot of fancy stuff out there," John added, "Yea. Cable..."

Anything else I've been missing for ten years? I already know I should check out Gilmore Girls. And I don't plan on missing another awards show as long as I live. But feel free to turn me on to other gold mines. I promise to still get the novel written somehow

.p.s. Little House on the Prairie? Five p.m., TV Land, every weekday. My first episode was "For the Love of Johnny Johnson", and I sighed with delight.