To Be Announced

We have a little box at our house that dictates what we will do for the next thirty to sixty minutes. Everyone in the family started going a little haywire last week when the box started spewing out "To Be Announced" instead of the regular programming guide. The worst part about this situation, is the box required a parental code to be entered in to make the box work, which is very inconvenient when the parent is either unwilling or unavailable to actually parent. Why else would we be using the little box?

Deeming this inconvenience too much, King decided that we would take our box in to the cable company to be traded in for a working model. He couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. I had my suspicions as to why the box had decided its time was up, but I didn't tell them what they were. Clearly it had been overused and too much dust had made its way into the motherboard. Have you seen the size of the holes on top of those boxes? Do you realize how long it has been since I have actually dusted my Family Room?

So, when we were out running errands, King packed up the all-knowing box and we went to exchange it. Only I waited in the car. There was no way I was going in there to have them laugh in our faces and tell us to get a new maid and turn off the TV every once in a while. But, miracle of miracles, King came out with a box that was half the size of the one he went in with. Apparently, our box had been collecting dust for electronic ages. Someone could probably have knitted a sweater from all that dust, because they don't even make the gigantic boxes we had been given all of eighteen months ago. It was outdated and archaic.

We now have a spiffy tiny silver thing. And all is well in our little kingdom again. No parental codes. No lives "To Be Announced". But, also, no big, shiny black box that actually shows the dust, reminding me to pick up a dust rag every once in a while. Drat. This one may wear out sooner than the last one.