No, I Don't Watch That Show!!!

I feel like at least once a week, I have a conversation that goes a little something like this:

Friend/Acquaintance: "Hey, do you watch (insert name of trendy cable show)?"
Craig: "Oh yeah, uh, yeah, well no, well I've seen it a couple of times but I can never remember to watch it on a regular basis. Yeah, but it seems really sweet."
Friend/Acquaintance: "You should watch it", with a look of scorn and disapproval.

I'm sorry! I can't keep up! Earlier tonight I started thinking about taking the $13 per month gut punch and resubscribing to HBO and then broke into a sweat when I remembered that some of the hip shows are now on Showtime. Maybe HBO isn't cool anymore; maybe Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage are yesterday's news. Showtime has shows about serial killers, lesbians, and pot. Seems trendy to me, but then I won't have time for the shows about vampires!

As I have mentioned, some of the TV viewing time in my house is burned on shows that have no place in a respectable society. Still, there's seriously no way to keep up. I pondered trying to climb on board the Mad Men bandwagon this summer, but we missed the season premiere and I don't know if I have it in me to try to catch up.

It just seems like it was a better setup back in the heyday of network TV, when there were three legitimate channels and everybody watched whatever made it into the prime time slots. I guess I should embrace the progress and the fact that programming options are so abundant. My glorified view of 1980's television overlooks the fact that people were so short on options that they actually kept Hotel and Falcon Crest on the air for five and nine seasons, respectively.

Why, yes, our show did suck, but at least people knew where to find it.

It's really just part of the larger narrative of my falling behind the times in general. I think the government is in initial discussions to have my house listed on the National Register of Historic Places due to the fact that you can find both a home telephone and actual CDs inside.