Rewind that Rerun

Tonight I saw the light.  It was on That 70’s Show and it was probably a rerun. 

 

Undoubtedly, Eli’s very most, all-time favorite show is That 70’s Show.  There were 200 episodes produced between 1998 and 2006, and I swear I know every single one by heart.  

EVERY day Eli sets the DVR to record EVERY episode on EVERY channel.  We have DISH TV and since I’m way too lazy to go see how many different channels and time slots that might be, let’s just say it works out to about a bajillion.  

Because I’ve had to listen to it virtually non-stop any time I pass through the living room, I HATE THIS SHOW.  (Well, to be fair, I hate just about all TV.)

Every night I clear out the DVR memory, and every day he records them all again.  I have had long heartfelt discussions with him, asking him to please stop recording them, explaining that setting that many timers causes everyone else’s shows to be bumped, which causes those bulgy veins to throb menacingly in people’s temples.   He says, “My bad” and promises not to do it anymore.  Twenty minutes later, his busy fingers are scrolling through the guide channel, setting recordings willy-nilly.

After I put Eli to bed tonight, I went back in his room for the umpty-eleventh time because he needed his glasses cleaned (Reason # 17 in a looonng list).  Making conversation, I asked him what he was watching on TV.  He told me about a movie that was ending, and then said, “You know what I’m going to watch next?  That 70’s Show."

I said, “That’s your favorite show, isn’t it, kiddo?  Don’t you ever get tired of watching it over and over?”

Somewhat surprised, he said, “Nooo…, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that was a rerun.”  

Astounded, I said, “Honey!  You’ve seen them all a million times.” 

And then he said, “Oh, well I guess don’t know it because my brain is messed up.”

I pretty much end every day with my head in my hands, ashamed at once again losing my patience with him.  Night after night, after I put him to bed, my phone begins to ring.  Sometimes it starts ringing before I have even shut his bedroom door and made it back to my office.  If I don’t answer my cell phone right away, he starts calling the house phone.  The other kids get frustrated and say “take his phone away,” but I worry he won’t have it the one time he needs it, like the time his legs fell out of bed and pulled him halfway to the floor.  I worry he’ll lose his blankets and lay shivering all night, or that he’ll get an excruciating itch he can’t reach.  

Those things rarely happen; he mostly calls over and over for me to get him some Coke or clean his glasses.  I plead and beg and cajole and threaten and sometimes scream and yell for him to please not call me for the same thing again, because I have papers to write, and laundry to do, and sanity to preserve.

It never occurred to me that he doesn’t know he’s doing it, that he doesn’t know it’s a rerun.

I guess “my brain is messed up” too.

Let Me Count the Ways...

76 answering machine messages.
19 phone calls in a two hour period.
253 hours of South Park and That 70’s Show recorded on the DVR.

Remember the scene in Rainman where Raymond counts the spilled toothpicks in the diner and his brother, Charlie Babbitt, is amazed that he gets it correct? That scene is Charlie’s first intimation that Raymond has unusual skills at counting, ultimately leading him to use Raymond’s abilities to count cards in Vegas. There is a lot of counting that goes on at my house, but so far, no one has made any money at it. Now that I think about it, it isn’t always just Eli who’s doing the counting – often it’s me muttering under my breath, “1…2…3…breathe Tanya, have patience Tanya….”

The accident that caused Eli’s severe brain injury happened almost four years ago. He’s come a long way in those years, progressing from being in a coma for several months to studying (and excelling at) high school algebra in preparation to take the GED. Yet it seems that most of our breakdowns involve numbers. Eli can remember my cell phone number, but he doesn’t remember that he’s already called me 6 times to tell me he would like some gum. He very cannily remembers the code to order Pay-per-View movies, yet doesn’t remember ordering the same movie 16 times (at $4.99 a pop). My answering machine stays full because he can’t remember no one answers it since we all have cell phones. Once a week, I have to stand by the machine, push the play button and listen to the robotic voice drone on and on, “You have…76 messages. First message…” Every single message starts outs, “Mooommm…” and then I hit delete, because there are only about 4 reasons he calls:

1) He wants his socks off,
2) He wants some Coke,
3) He wants his iPod/phone charged,
4) He wants a cheeseburger.

He calls at 2:00 a.m. wanting to know why he’s in bed. We tell him it’s the middle of the night and he says, “My bad…I thought it was 2:00 in the afternoon.” He calls to tell us that he’s leaving his daycare center. He calls again to say he’s on the interstate. A third call informs us he’s getting close to our neighborhood, followed by the fourth call that conveys the scintillating news that he’s coming down the hill toward our house. All those calls translate to my counting out large sums of money to pay the cell phone bill.

I count packs of gum to determine how many days it will last him.

I count the hours until he goes to bed and relinquishes the TV remote so I can have some peace and quiet.

And then I count the many ways I should be ashamed.

Because there was a time I sat in an ER waiting room counting down the critical hours that would determine whether he lived or died (24). There were days we watched in horror as the bolt screwed into his head monitoring his ICP rose to 50 and above (and normal should have been about 15). There were months we anxiously watched for a sign that he understood what was going on around him, telling him to blink once for yes, twice for no.

My bad, Eli. You’d think by now I would have learned how to count my blessings, huh?