Please don't change the channel

After failing to get even the three network channels with our basic cable package, we decided something was possibly wrong, and the Hero called the cable company. The young man on the other end was very helpful, or would have been had we wanted one of the numerous upgrades he was earnestly trying to sell.

"No, I do NOT want the upgrade," the Hero said so many times that I thought he was a recording. "Not that one either. We just -- if we can't even get what we're supposed to be getting with the basic package, why would I upgrade to ANOTHER package?" 

Happily, the website showed us the simple solution we wanted, and it did not try to sell us anything for $100 more. We simply needed some sort of device, which would come in the mail along with -- surprise! -- yet another remote control. If our household consisted of 17 other individuals, we could all have our very own remote control.

But while waiting to have our rightful channels restored so that we would have access to greater amounts of entertainment, we spent an afternoon being far more entertained by three live children.

They are roughly 11, 12, and 14, the offspring of friends of ours, and they made us forget, for a while, that we had only two cable channels. We were all consuming ice cream together, which perhaps inevitably led to a discussion of food. Young persons of 11, 12, and 14 are highly fond of food.

The third was complaining that the first had consumed a great quantity of some food at home, which had then deprived the others of their fair share.

"He ate almost the whole thing!" she protested.

"He needs it!" the mother said in his defense. "He's a swimmer. He needs the energy."

"But I'm a ballerina. I need energy too!"

The swimmer pointed out gleefully that ballerinas are supposed to have "just a small salad for lunch." 

The ballerina rolled her eyes at this. The second wisely stayed out of things, lest he be told that softball players must subsist on bread and water.

This turned to a discussion of what the mother had craved during the three pregnancies, as the offspring tried to divine any sort of correlation between that and their present food preferences.

With the first, it was chips and salsa. The second, donuts ("I would eat two or three on the way home from Krispy Kreme. Then the rest of the box at home."). The third -- she couldn't remember what she craved with the third.

"No one EVER remembers anything about the last kid," the third said grumpily.

Except if the last kid came along, as the Hero and I did, long after the others, and then EVERYBODY remembers EVERYTHING about you. How you wanted to stay a little barbarian and refused to wear big girl pants. How you wore horribly mismatched clothes in kindergarten. Even, in one of our cases, the details surrounding one's conception.

Sometimes it is best if certain details remain unremembered and, more critically, unshared.

The topic turned to months, and calendars, and a small but intense discussion ensued between the second and third. Though they both conceded that the other had a calendar in their room, there was some disagreement over which of them USED a calendar more.

"I have a calendar. It's on my desk."

"Mine's on the wall."

"But you don't LOOK at your calendar."

"Proving what?"

"I actually USE my calendar!"

"This is better than watching TV," I said to the Hero. "Do we get this channel?"

"Live entertainment's always better," he said.

So, cable company, if that new device you're sending us doesn't work, be warned. We've potentially found something better than you.