Losing a friend is hard. Someone is with you day after day, making you laugh, knowing just when you want to sit and not talk or when you need an escape from the day-to-day routines. Then, all of a sudden, they are gone.
I lost a friend recently. He was struck by lightning if you can believe that. Of course, everything I love gets struck by lightning. In the last five years I've lost a television, computer and my surround sound. But my latest loss was almost too hard to take. My TiVo.
For those of you who have not been befriended by TiVo, let me explain what a great friend he is. Basically, he records your favorite television shows, but it goes much deeper than that. If you like a television show, say "24," all you have to do is make a season pass for "24." Then every time the show comes on television, it will record it for you.
On my TiVo, I could have up to 80 hours of shows, just waiting for me to watch them at my own convenience. It may sound like a lot, but you have a year to watch them, and eventually I expect to take some time off.
TiVo and I actually hit it off right off the bat. The first day I hooked the fabulous machine up to my television and watched I was hooked. You see, with TiVo you can rank the programs you watch and then it will record programs on its own just for you.
I didn't know this until the second day I had my great friend and saw that he had recorded "The Godfather." How he knew it was one of my favorite movies I don't know, but that fact he did know was amazing.
As the days went on we grew closer and my TiVo eventually knew my tastes more than my wife, who I have been married to for nine years. I could always count on coming home, turning on the television and finding a wonderful TV show or sports event that my good buddy TiVo had recorded for me.
He introduced me to the greatness that is women's beach volleyball and also to such quality television shows like "The Family Guy" and "Jericho." I can stay up to date with "SportsCenter" and "The Keith Olbermann Show." Granted there are occasional hiccups like a "Cosby Show" episode or a women's golf tournament, but with one push of the button they are gone.
And that is another reason TiVo and I got along so well. When watching my television shows, with one push of the button I am quickly speeding through commercials without hardly missing a beat. You haven't watched television until you can avoid the awful noise (also known as music) that Beyonce and others mix into commercials.
But TiVo also knows that sometimes nature calls, even during football games. However, TiVo took care of the problem with the pause button. Once nature calls I can pause the game and not miss one second. Oh, life was great.
Now it isn't so great. The evil known as lightning has taken my good friend and now I wait for them to send the replacement. I feel lost, like the world no longer includes me. I don't know what is going on in "Heroes," and if I want to watch the news I have to watch it live with commercials. Can you believe that? Live and WITH commercials!
So now I have laid my old TiVo to rest, delivered a eulogy and cried my tears. Now I wait for the TiVo company to send me a new friend. But while I wait I also worry about the kind of friend I will be sent. I could end up with a friend that likes-- gulp-- "Project Runway," cheerleading or even chick flicks. If I came home and saw "How to Make an American Quilt," or "Fried Green Tomatoes," our friendship would be over before it started. Then how would I ever find out what happened on the last episode of "Heroes?" It's hard losing a friend.