Curse You, Samsung!

So, the good news first. Drumroll please. We FINALLY got cable! I've resisted for SO many years and for SO many reasons. But, this college-aged Comcast sales person showed up on a Saturday after we had a week of grief with Qwest. We also had JUST been talking about how we would need to upgrade our Tivo box when everything goes digital in February. The lucky kid got the easiest sale of his life; we just decided to go for it.

Everything was set-up on Saturday which basically meant the weekend was shot. I, who have had cable before, am more into the DVR (recording two shows at once? Be still my heart!) and the On Demand. But, John was a surfing maniac. And Katie was just happy to have Disney Channel. Now, for the record, I keep telling John he HAS had cable before. We lived in an apartment for 1 1/2 years and we had cable. And when we up at my mom's, we had cable. But he thinks because he's PAYING for it, that means it's his first cable and oh yeah... that he can just watch it ALL the time now.

So, the bad news. Disaster struck last night. We were working on Katie memorizing the 5th Article of Faith for FHE and bribed her with getting to play the Wii for the Family Night activity. But the TV is dead. Dead. Dead. DEAD! This TV is only 2 1/2 years old. It's a nice TV. And it's the TV we do everything on. John, being Mr. Fix It, tore the TV apart and went to Radio Shack at 8:30 p.m. to get some stuff to make it work again, but of course, nothing worked. Then, he spent the rest of the night researching online and I guess a bunch of suckers like us have the same problem as we do. The feedback he found was that many of them spent $300 - $400 to get it fixed and it still didn't work. Lovely.

When bad things like this happen, my first immature thought is always, "What did I do to deserve this?" Not like I don't think bad things should happen to me, it's just I'm a big believer in God given lessons, Karma, the whole nine yards. Was it that we got a Wii for Christmas and then cable? Is this God's way of saying, "Hey. We're in a recession. Stop spending money!" Or is it just dumb Samsung and a crappy TV? Or is it just crazy coincidence? Or like Alanis sings, "Isn't it ironic?" (even though that makes no sense. That is NOT the definition of ironic. Rain on your wedding day? That's just unfortunate. Maybe the song should be "Isn't it unfortunate?" or "Doesn't that just suck?").

There's really no deeper meaning to my TV breaking down. And yes, doesn't that just suck? Fortunately, we have another small TV in our bedroom that we'll just use and suck it up until we can save up to buy another one. I'm always telling Katie to be grateful for what she has, because a lot of people don't have the things she does. Which, by the way, sometimes backfires on me. I was complaining about the car the other day when she said, "You should be grateful because a lot of people don't have cars." Or the best was when we were talking about the nativity scene at Temple Square and she said, "Mary and Joseph were lucky to be in a stable, because other people live on the street." That's when John and I jumped in and said it was NOT okay that they were in a stable and everyone should have made room for them in the inn and so on.

So, I'll take Katie's advice and count my blessings. Hey, I've got cable, a Wii, DVD player and Clearplay. I just have a tiny TV to do it all on.