Books are good but no one gets fired, dismissed, chopped or asked to put out their torch.

I know you were all worried but have no fear!  I have a new cable box!

The kids and I went Tuesday morning to pick it up.  I immediately came home and hooked up the three cords that needed to be hooked up.  My husband showed me what to do before he left on a business trip Sunday afternoon.

But there is a lot of time between Sunday afternoon and Tuesday morning and all these cords and cables were very cord-y and cable-y and very electric looking.  So I got them hooked up to the best of my ability, called the cable company so they could send the box a signal and then crossed my fingers.

And nothing.

I uncrossed my fingers, started unhooking and rehooking and crossed my fingers again.

And nothing.

So I did what any completely self-sufficient yet totally untechnical woman does.  I said, "Kids, we'll just have to wait until your daddy gets home tonight to look at this."

But my poor husband didn't get home from the airport until 12:20 am and the last thing he wanted to do was look at the cable box.  So I stopped snoring long enough to tell him, "Don't worry about it.  You can look at it tomorrow morning before you leave for work.

But alas, he had not time before he left for work on Wednesday morning so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I looked at the TV and declared, " I can do this!" And then I began to hum, "I can bring home the bacon (from the grocery store), fry it up in a pan (in the microwave) and never ever let you forget you're a man (because I need you to mow the grass.)

Anywho, I unplugged and replugged and finally decided to call the cable company.

I was on the phone for 30 minutes with the nicest customer service person from Time Warner Cable.  She was friendly, knowledgeable and helpful.  And finally after she tried everything she knew, she said, "Do you mind if I put you on hold while I research some other options?"

While I was on hold, I decided to unhook the HDMI cord from the HDMI1 slot on the back of the tv and plug it into the HDMI4 slot on the side of the TV.  And I waited.

And it worked!!

I was so excited but I felt horrible for the nice customer service lady.  I apologized for taking up her time and merrily went  on my way.

I didn't turn the TV on again until after the kids went to bed.  Dan and I decided to watch The Next Food Network Star (my poor husband will watch this with me only because there is absolutely nothing else on and he is just nice like that).  We didn't have it recorded on the DVR because this is a new DVR and nothing was recorded on it yet.  But the episode we wanted to watch was available On Demand.  So we pulled it up and then...

Nothing! 

Gah! We tried several other On Demand shows and channels and the same thing...

Nothing!

In my great annoyance I called Time Warner Cable.  I spoke to a different customer service representative.  This guy was nice enough and he tried to send the box a new signal.  When that didn't work, he put me on hold so he could talk to his supervisor.  They tried to send it a new signal.  And when that didn't work he said, "We can have someone out to your house on Monday morning."

To which I replied, "All right.  How about taking something off my bill to make up for the fact that I won't have On Demand for 6 days."

And he replied, "O.k."  And after a couple of minutes he reduced next month's bill by $15.74.

So if you know which chef got the ax on The Next Food Network Star, keep it to yourself.

I guess I really should look into taking up reading again.