That live program is on that you’ve wanted so much to see. It’s that game between the Eagles and Cowboys. It’s that Country Music Awards. It’s that finale of The Voice, and you’re all set to DVR it because you have to get up early for work the next morning. It’s the
perfect solution. You get to still watch your live show in its entirety from start to finish, and you only have to wait a day to do so. But wait! You haven’t taken into account the media machine that churns out information, information, information on a 24/7 basis, the same media machine to which you wholeheartedly subscribe — normally. So you’ll have to avoid Facebook, Twitter, FoxNews (oh yeah, never mind that one), and any search engine, especially Google, all day long until you can see your program in all its glory.
But you’ve forgotten another major factor that will inevitably factor in, the people factor. You work with more than one other person in an environment where you usually talk about just the type of live program you weren’t able to see last night. So you have to avoid the topic with them, something that is difficult to do. The voice in your head asks you why you have to avoid the topic. Why not just tell them you haven’t seen it and not to let you know what happened? Well, because human nature won’t let them keep it on the down low. Now you’ve put it into their heads, and if there’s anything we like to do as a human race, it’s the things we know we aren’t supposed to do. So they will let it slip, and you’ll be totally devastated. As a precaution, you take your lunch at a different time than the people who usually talk with you about the live program, and you spend more time by yourself than normal, putting on the proverbial blinders to what people are saying around you.
And you succeed. You get home, relax on the couch with a glass of Pinot Grigio, and flip on the DirecTV, scanning down your list of copied programs… and it’s not there. “Shoot!” you think, remembering how it was the lowest program on your priority list and subsequently didn’t even copy. You head back into the kitchen for the rest of the bottle. You’ve earned it.
Sam
Sam's Online Journal 