Crisis.
My First World Problem of today is that my smart TVs (yes, I said “TVs“. I am over-privileged and unrelateable and we like nice sh*t. deal.) haven’t been streaming Netflix for a couple of weeks. This interfered with two fundamentally enjoyable things: Hubby and I finishing Breaking Bad on Netflix, and me falling asleep every night watching Firefly.
Yes, I watch Firefly every night falling asleep. There was only one season of that show? Yeah, no kidding. I’m starting to fade on it now but I’ve been watching it every night for about a year. Before that it was Star Trek Voyager. A few years ago it was Millennium. Before that the X-Files. I do love me falling asleep to TV. A friend calls me Sleepy Time Tea because I fall over asleep every night at 9 pretty much no matter where I am and that’s several hours ahead of Hubby so he doesn’t care because he isn’t watching it (although he can tell you, although he’d really rather not know, every plot of every Star Trek Voyager episode ever made and there were a rocking seven seasons to that gem) and if it doesn’t bother my partner, who should really care?
The part of this particular First World Problem report that does affect Hubby is that we’ve been watching Breaking Bad together. We didn’t start watching it until the show was over, but the last part of season 5 wasn’t available on DVD or Netflix. So, we get to the end of the middle of Season 5 and need to wait a few months for it to be released. “Oooooh,” everyone tells us. “The ending is fantastic. You’re going to love, love, love it.” We’re practically slobbering to get to the end anyway so this just added fuel to a very hot fire. It finally comes out, we begin watching it, we get to the very, very, very last episode and boom. Netflix stops streaming. We try all the usual things to get it back up and no joy. We’ve just had to replace the router and groan over the settings nightmare that may be ahead of us to get this problem resolved.
So today I get home from work ahead of Hubby and decide I’m going to tackle the TV issues. Because, as these things tend to go, we had an additional problem on our hands. Cable was out in the bedroom. I call DirectTV. Now, I have made the call but I admit to not having the greatest attitude about the process.
DirectTV rep: “I’ll just re-set everything remotely.”
Snakelady: “OK” Thinking: Cool, Comcast used to do that and it usually worked and I didn’t have to do anything.
DirectTV: “While that’s happening I’d to take this opportunity to sell you blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.”
Snakelady: “Not.” Thinking: Not. “It’s back in the living room.” Walk to bedroom. “Not back in the bedroom”
DirectTV rep: “You need to blah-blah-blah-blah-blah your HDMI cables on the buttons on your TV blah-blah”
Snakelady: “There are no buttons on my TV” Thinking: God I hate this crap.
DirectTV: “Yes there are”
Snakelady: Feels for buttons. “No there aren’t.” Thinking: I should give up on this.
DirectTV: “Then you can do it on your remote control.”
Snakelady: Pushes Source. “HDMI1 is labeled Comcast” Thinking: this could be problematic
DirectTV: “Comcast?!”
Snakeledy: “Yup” Thinking: Solve that remotely. I dare you.
DirectTV: “You need to pick another HDMI blah-blah-blah-blah. You need to move the cables in the back of your TV blah-blah”
Snakelady: “It’s attached to the wall. I can’t see anything. I’ll be randomly plugging a cable into a different outlet.” Thinking: If I screw it up, Hubby can fix it later when this dreadful DirectTV person is done judging me.
DirectTV: “Do that blah-blah-blah”
Snakelady: “I’ve got to put the phone down” Thinking: Thank God. Move the mirror. Randomly plug crap into the back of my TV. TV starts working again. Pick up the phone “It’s working again.”
DirectTV: “Told you” (and not very nicely either).
Snakelady Thinking: Oh no you d-i-d-n-‘-t. That is totally going on your evaluation when your company emails me wanting to know what I thought of your service. I’ll fess up to having a bad attitude and you can fess up to telling a customer “Told you.”
After the cable was back up I felt so high on the power of life that I decided to tackle the streaming problem on my own. I come into the study to look for the new router’s instruction manual and realize that I have thrown it away. I look but it’s simply gone. I remember clear-cutting the top of the desk last week.
Snakelady has a very bad history of throwing away important things. Particularly mail but also other things. Hubby blames any single missing thing in the house – in our LIVES – on me throwing it away. Thing is, he’s right most of the time.
Now it is no joke. Now it is not a laughing matter. Now it is absolute necessity. I must, must, must fix the TVs without Hubby finding out I threw away the manual. He had specifically referred to using the manual to solve the streaming problem. He’s going to be looking for it. He’s going to insist on trying to find it and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s laboriously looking for something I am sure is gone. Thing is, he tends to find things I think are gone forever. It’s terribly aggravating.
I decide that I’m going to try Step One of any router problem. I unplug it for a minute and plug it back in. I go to the TV. I re-enter the password. Boom. Netflix starts streaming. I text Hubby that I am wonderful and fabulous and have fixed the streaming issue all on my own. I wonder how long I can hide the fact that I threw out the router manual.
Plum Librarian LLC 