... About My Dependency Problem

Reader, I'm sure you've often heard me gripe about people who are totally dependent on technology. Like people who don't know how to use a phone book and instead rely on yellowpages.com. Or people who communicate with you exclusively through email, even when you're only sitting a good spit away from them. Or people who are so dependent on their cell phones that they bring them to inappropriate places. Like the movies. Or church.

Last week, somebody's cell phone went off in sacrament meeting. During the sacrament. THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN. I can't stress that enough.

You know those little reminders they do before the movie to ask people to please turn off their phones? I'm betting that before long, bishops are going to have to start doing the same thing from the pulpit at the start of meetings. Pathetic, but probably true.

Unless you're a doctor on call, or the only person with the code to stop an imminent nuclear air strike, you shouldn't even BRING your cell phone to church. Or to the movies. They're both sacred and spiritual events. And if you do happen to be the only one who can prevent an international catastrophe, put it on silent. Not buzz - SILENT. You can discreetly whip it out and check for missed calls every couple of minutes, if you're really that concerned.

THE HUMAN RACE HAS SURVIVED FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS WITHOUT CELL PHONES. YOU'LL LAST THREE HOURS. Besides, if you're in church (or Movie Church) when the world blows up, no worries. You'll get into Heaven.

As I'm sure you deduced, Reader, I have strong feelings about this. Hence all the CAPITALIZED, BOLD, BRIGHT RED TEXT.

That said, my DVR has been out for two days and I'm going insane! How can I be expected to watch TV without being able to pause, rewind, fast-forward, or record my favorite programs? It's like living in the frickin' Stone Age. For example, last night Bailey and I were chatting when Jon Stewart came back on, so we missed a joke. And we couldn't rewind to hear it again!

How can people possibly be expected to survive without a DVR? It's like we're being punished or something! Like the universe is conspiring against us, taking away everything worth living for. What kind of sick, twisted hell is this?!?!

Isn't it bad enough that our TV requires several minutes of gentle coaxing and careful timing to even turn on? No, Reader, we can live with that. We can live with sitting on the floor with one finger on the power button and another on the plug, working a carefully-adjusted rhythm over and over again (plug in, press the button, wait for the 'click' as it turns itself off, press the button again, unplug, repeat. Plug, press, 'click', press, unplug. Plug, press, 'click', press, unplug) for five or ten minutes until the TV decides to stay on and let us watch it.

But asking us to live without a DVR? It goes against the very essence of the life we've become accustomed to!

I know what you're thinking, Reader, and you're wrong. I am not a hypocrite. Clinging to your cell phone like your last strand of hope and clinging to your DVR like your last strand of hope are sompletely different. People lived for tens of thousands of years without cell phones... but if my DVR doesn't get fixed in time to record the season premiere of 'House' tonight heads are gonna roll.

I'M TALKING ROLLING HEADS HERE.