The Move-In Dance Part 1: The DVR

In days of yore, men and women used to fight over the TV remote. Actually, I remember the days before remotes. My dad and mom got to sit on the couch and my sister and I sat on the floor, and when my dad wanted the channel changed, we did it for him. I was convinced for a long time that was why people had children–they never had to get up off the couch.

In days of slightly less yore, men and women used to fight over the TV remote. Then the DVR came along and changed all that. It was no longer so necessary to fight over the remote at any given time, because you can record things and watch them later. Plus, if you watch them later then you don’t have to watch the commercials.

This means that if so you kind of get a power flip, and whoever has the least power has to watch their show live, commercials and all, while the other person’s show records.

I canceled my cable at my apartment in Flagstaff because I wasn’t watching it much when I was in town anyway, and so I could chip in for satellite at my BF’s (student loan repayments more than he bargained for so he’s a little short on cash and I figured I could help out).  I told him this, and said that now that I was paying for half, I wanted half of the recordings (our DVR can only make 50 series recordings…sigh…).

Him: You already have half of the recordings.

Me: <raise eyebrow>

Him: Okay, let’s check.

He opens up the prioritizer.

Him: Oh, it looks like I have 35 out of 50 shows recording.

Me: And I have nothing in the top 10.

Him: Tell me how many shows you want me to delete.

Hm. I thought that I was going to have a deliciously long post for you with lots of advice about tact and compromise.  Turns out, if you both have the same definition of compromise, sometimes no discussion is necessary.  Though I did reprioritize his stuff and put some things into the top 10 without telling him!