Third Rock and The King

It has become customary for Mr. Taylor and I to record episodes of "The King Of Queens" and watch one or two of them just before we retire every night. This started over a year ago and I fear at this point has become more of an addiction than a custom for my husband. To date, we have probably seen each episode no fewer than 10 times. I have most of them memorized word for word.

The show is still funny, but it began to grow a little old to me a month or so ago. This was only made worse by the fact that when particularly amusing scenes play, Walt will "rewind" and watch it over again several times in succession, laughing hysterically each and every time.

I suppose you could say the man is easily entertained. ( I don't know exactly how that reflects on me as his wife, but it's true)

When I watch t.v. I tend to choose shows that range from one extreme to the other. I either want to see something incredibly mindless and silly, or I want something that leans to the "dark" side. Once Mr. Taylor has laughed himself to sleep, I will normally flip channels until I locate something akin to "Forensic Files" or "Dr. G. Medical Examiner".

That was before I re-discovered a sitcom from the 90's called "Third Rock From The Sun". I use to love that show. It definitely falls into the "mindless, silly" category and is just what I've been needing a lot of lately. I happily set the DVR to record every episode.

Because I only watch it a couple times a week, this meant I had 10 or 12 episodes to choose from every time I got my turn at the remote.

Last night we came home from a Halloween party at our neighbors and began settling in for the night. Walt had a hunting trip planned for the wee hours of the morning, so he surrendered the remote to me after only two re-run, re-runs of "The King of Queens". I happily accepted his offer to watch a show of MY choosing and clicked on "recordings".

I noticed there were no new "Third Rock" episodes on the list. Hmm. I skimmed down through through the titles and saw lots and lots of "King", several old western movies (needless to say those were not mine either) "Deliverence" (oh please!) "The Godfather" (are you beginning to see a trend here?)

No "Third Rock" offerings at all, except for a few waaaay down towards the bottom that I'd already watched in recent weeks.

I looked at the snoozing man lying beside me in the bed, and then at the clock which read "12:05" I knew he had to get up at 4:30 to go hunting but really felt I had no choice but to awaken him. This was an emergency!

After several elbows to the ribs, he opened his eyes, and asked, "What is it?"

"What happened to all my "Third Rock From The Sun" recordings?" I asked.

He thought for a moment and finally responded .. "Oh ....."

Propped on both elbows, I glared at him in anticipation of the answer I knew would surely follow.

"I must have deleted them. I was going through the list the other day cleaning it up a little. I'm sorry. Just go ahead and reset it to record them again."

Within a milli-second he had fallen back into a peacefully state of slumber.

So much for the crisis at hand.

WHAT? "Just go ahead and set it to record them again?" To begin with, I don't even remember what channel the show was being aired on, or when it aired at all! Secondly, it was after midnight, and with the exception of the light from the television screen, it was dark in the room. Unlike my husband, I don't know how to blindly manipulate the remote.

Oh, believe me, it did cross my mind to turn on ALL the lights and blatantly search the programming schedule until I found my "Third Rock" but I resisted and found something morbid to watch instead. It wasn''t quite the same, but it had to do.

In the process, I couldn't help but stew just a little. How ironic that only MY shows got "cleaned" off the repeated recordings list and his did not.

I don't ask for much. For every chick flick Mr. Taylor and I watch together, we see at least 20 manly-man types of shows. And it wasn't like we were running out of room for recordings either. If I'm not mistaken, the last time I looked I noticed we had about 200 hours of recording space available.

Maybe there is a 300 hour "King of Queens" marathon coming up that I am unaware of and Walt is afraid he's going to miss it.

To make matters worse, first thing this morning I started scanning the program schedule so I could find out when MY show will be airing again, and correct the situation. I had no luck whatsoever. By all appearances, my beloved aliens from "Third Rock" have left the planet.

I won't give up. I can't! This is war and I WILL WIN!

King of Queens, you have no power over the alien forces of Third Rock!

And Mr. Taylor, you know me better than to think you have heard the last of this matter.