Direct TV and Dish Network and Still No Help...

This is one of the few households that subscribe to both Dish Network and Direct TV. I'll get to the reason that I'm telling you that in a moment. Last week I had the miserable job of replacing a kitchen faucet. If you think about it, the working condition leave a lot to be desired. You're squeezed in under the sink with the pee trap and the garbage disposal to keep you company and no matter what you do, you cannot reach whatever it is that you're trying to reach. Once you devise a route to get to said location, you then have to perform a task on that part that requires movement, which is certainly not going to happen. They have devised something called a faucet wrench that we purchased for the job, but I never found the occasion to use it. There's another $12 item that will sit on the table next to it's receipt forever. Now picture yourself reaching up to attache a bolt to the hot and cold water knobs of your sink. Are you picturing where it is? Are you picturing the pee trap and the garbage disposal in their proper place? Now, with only the one hand that can access the thread of the knob, try wrapping silicone tape around the threads. I completed said task, got the bleeding to stop on my head, where I whacked it on the cabinet corner (actually saw stars on that one) and it only took me one afternoon and 3 trips to Home Depot. I told my son at lunch the other day that I installed a faucet in the kitchen sink. All he asked was,"How many trips to Home Depot did it take"? I said 3. He said, "Nice job"! We both laughed because we know that whatever you purchase at Home Depot, for whatever reason, is not going to happen in one trip. My catastrophe was when I was all finished, my hoses that came out of the new faucet would not even come close to the water supply. That required 2 additional trips alone!

By this time you are probably wondering why I started this post with the discussion of satellite TV. Well, in an effort to maybe learn a little bit about installing a kitchen faucet, I watched DIY TV for several days, hoping that they would install a faucet for an example for me. However, it being what you may call boring TV, all they did was mention installing a faucet and suddenly it would appear. Somehow I got addicted to Do-It-Yourself TV. I found it relaxing to watch some poor slob destroy a kitchen that looked perfectly wonderful to me, because it was outdated. I watched them install brass back-splashes, sinks that looked like the urinals at the local YMCA and beautiful granite counters. So after about a week or 10 days of watching DIY channel when nothing more interesting was on, last Saturday I went to my friendly TV and low and behold DIY station now costs money to watch. It was SNATCHED out of my regular programming, which by the way costs an arm and a leg! Not believing my eyes, I went to the room that houses our Direct TV, perfectly lovely 42' flatscreen TV and there it was, my DIY station, still for free.

So here's what I think happened. The powers that be at Dish Network tracked my TV watching and discovered that I had a new interest, DIY. Well, they weren't going to miss a chance at getting a little more money out of us, so in order to feed my new habit, they figured I happily toss in a few more chips to watch some fool demolish his back deck with his overweight daughter hindering his every move! Well, they didn't plan on Direct TV coming to my rescue at $29.99 a month.

The fact is, I don't have Direct TV by choice, but when I had it put in, I didn't know I was signing a 2 year contract, so when I moved, Direct TV moved with me like some unwanted distant cousin that you can't seem to shake.

In closing, I've got 4 more months of Direct TV then they're out of here, if you're attempting to install a kitchen faucet DO NOT watch the DIY channel, but you may feel perfectly welcome to contact me and I can give you advice on how to wrap a bandage and stop excessive bleeding. Good night...