Sunday nights are stressful in the Wolfsie household because there are just so many great programs we both want to see.To deal with this problem, my wife has a kind of spread sheet where she charts each show and then figures out how we can accomplish our viewing goals without missing anything.
“Dick, I’m going to tape “Madam Secretary,” but we’ll watch “Homeland” live, and I can also record that mini-series about John Paul Getty. Then we can DVR “Billions,” unless we can get it “On Demand” Monday.
“OK, Mary Ellen, why can’t we record ‘Homeland’ later, then you can watch ‘Mystery Theater’ and I can watch the baseball game? Wait, I can’t miss ‘Deception.’ Can I watch both of them live?
“You can’t watch ‘Deception’ live because it’s HDTV, which means we could only record one other show. I could watch sports with you, but you know there’s no chance of that happening.”
With the DVR, we have the option to zip past ads by using the fast-forward option. My wife is a two-arrow person, meaning she only presses the forward button twice. She wants to trudge slowly along so she doesn’t pass the desired starting spot immediately after the commercials. I’m a five-time arrow pusher.It goes forward so fast that I have to backtrack, because I always end up at the closing credits even though I’ve only watched 10 minutes of the show. Then I rewind with five pushes to find where I left off, and all of a sudden, I’m looking at the opening credits…again. The other night Mary Ellen shoved me off the couch because I was driving her crazy with the FF button. This is how push comes to shove.
At some point when you program too many shows at the same time, a prompt comes up that says: C O N F L I C T. Yes, indeed there is a conflict, but Mary Ellen and I always try to work it out, because we don’t want to go to bed mad. Assuming we ever get to bed. It’s difficult…with so many shows to watch.
