Sassy Black Friend

How many channels?

Or, my love affair* with cable television.

The first time I had cable television was some time in the late 80′s, when cable first came to my neighborhood. Like everyone else, we got it. My mother decided it was a waste of time soon after. But we kept it until 1993. So, I remember watching the first season of the Real World, and then the cable went away. By that time I was a teenager and spent as little time in my house as possible anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

When I went to college there was cable in all the dorms, I think we even got HBO. Since I only lived on campus for one year, it didn’t make much of an impression at the time. The only thing I remember watching was South Park. It stared around the same time as my Freshman year, so it was something new and exciting that everyone would get together to watch.

After I loved off campus is when I started watching more than a few minutes a day of cable. CNN was on in the morning when I was getting ready for work or class, and again when I got home in the evening. That first year in an apartment I had a new boyfriend and no money, so we spent a lot of time watching TV. Very hot dates, let me tell you.

When I graduated from college I was still broke, and now had extra time on my hands, so I got lots of fancy cable channels thinking it would keep me from going out and spending money. Fail. I still went out, came home to watch Iron Chef at 2 am and was still broke.

When I left DC to come back to Philly I lived with my mother for a few months. She is still happily cable-free. I felt like I was losing my mind. No Good Eats? No Mad Men? No True Blood? No Mythbusters? No Leverage? No Rachel-freaking-Maddow? Lame. So, I ahem – depended on the internet for a while, quietly seething. 4 months with 6 channels was shocking to me. Even though I don’t watch a ton of television, it had been over a decade since I couldn’t watch news whenever I wanted to.

Now I’m finally in an apartment that doesn’t smell, leak or give me a rash. I have a 2 year lease, and a very nice man is coming this afternoon to install my DirecTV. So, if you need me over the next week I’ll be watching MSNBC.

* not really.