Maxigumee

I’ve been totally stressed out today. Not because of school. Not because of homework. Not because we forgot to get a stupid notary public signature on my early dismissal form….. well, partly from that. The major reason that I was totally stressed out and panicky today, though, that reason is Martha Stewart.

In case you’ve been living in a hole for the past year, Martha Stewart’s new LIVE show, Martha, premiered today at 11 AM. In order to watch this show, I had to go to Target and buy a VCR so my friend can tape it during the school day. Why can’t I tape it myself? Because. I waited way too long to call the cable people (last Friday, to be exact) and they are coming this Friday to install it. That is five days of Martha that needs to be taped. ONE WHOLE WEEK.

I spent some time Sunday working out the time settings on the VCR so that it would tape properly Monday morning at 11. I set it to tape five minutes before 11 and I also set the VCR clock five minutes forward. Just in case. I tested the record mode and the timer-record mode. Just in case. All seemed to work fine. (Insert ellipsis and “DUM-DUM-DUM!” here.) All seemed to be working fine.

I spent much of the school day giddily awaiting the end of the day where I could rush to my friend’s house and retrieve the tape. When I actually did get to do this, she and I walked to her house, we went to the TV and I pressed rewind. The VCR made a few clicking noises but nothing that signified any significant rewindage. WHY ISN’T IT REWINDING??! I pressed play. There was the dirt bike piece that we tested the VCR with. La-la. Then nothing. Just fuzz.

Thank God for TLC. TLC comes with broadcast cable service, it plays episodes of Trading Spaces ad nauseam, and it plays a replay of Martha every day at 6 PM. We were saved. I set the record timer to 6 PM. I told my friend’s little sister to check if the little record light was on at six and if not, to press record herself, just in case.

I went to a meeting, came back, did some summer reading listening (the public library has an abundance of audio books, FYI), and paced back and forth until 6:55 when I could take it no longer and dashed over to my friend’s house to get my tape. And praise-the-Lord-Almighty-Amen! It had taped! Unfortunately, this still doesn’t solve the great VCR not taping when it is TOLD TO dilemma. I was informed that some record-button pressing was required to tape the show and that the timer did not tape as it was supposed to. Stupid VCRs. I thought it was just an old person thing that it’s impossible to set the timer on them.

I got to go home and watch the tape. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. It was a tad bit unceremonious. Not much really happened. I would have liked to have seen Martha use her pagillion-dollar gigantic set, but instead, all she did was prepare scrambled eggs and meat balls. Not that great for a series premier. I did enjoy, however, Martha’s slight fidgetiness and her somewhat fast-paced neurotic personality. I checked out this week’s show schedule. The upcoming celebrity guests seem pretty cool.

On another note- My history teacher scared the crap out of me today when he said that you could get Hepatitis-B from spit on a sidewalk.