During lunch break last week, everyone at work was discussing the television show Veep. I sat there eating my sandwiches in silence, because, like with most critically-acclaimed tv shows airing since the birth of my children, I had never seen it. My television preferences veer toward the “watch-reruns-of Law & Order– I’ve-already-seen-but-forgot-the-ending-to,” or shows about couples deciding which fancy condo in Maui to buy.
But I hate being left out of conversations. My FOMO is so bad, I once drank agave and cayenne-flavored water for lunch so I could participate in a staff-room chat about cleanses. I needed to see Veep, pronto.
Since I’m too cheap to pay for HBO (and also stuck in 2002), I went to my local library and checked out the DVD. Done and done. Tonight, after the kids went to bed, I would binge-watch the first season. Only eight episodes? That’s totally do-able in a week.
Night 1:
Look at Julia Louis Dreyfus on the DVD cover. Man, she has aged well. She’s in her mid-50’s but has the arms of a college tennis player. What am I doing wrong? I look like I could play her older sister on a sitcom about a famous good-looking actress and her dumpy older sister who looks nothing like her. But enough wallowing; time to watch this sucker.
Ooh, look, that episode of Law & Order is on, where the ex-wife kills her husband’s stripper girlfriend. How does it end again?
Night 2:
Why won’t my kids go to bed? It is after 10pm, and they are spinning around like they’re at a rave for toddlers. Maybe they’d like to calm down, cuddle with Mommy, and see a foul-mouthed sitcom about politics?
They would not.
Fine, one more episode of Peppa Pig, then BEDTIME.
Night 3:
I finally opened the DVD to settle in for some side-splitting government humor, but instead of Veep: Disc One, there’s Elmo’s Potty Fun. Now I’ve frantically checked the cases of every DVD we own, but no Veep.
The library’s gonna kill me!
Wait. Found it. It somehow fell behind the DVD player. Also found my flash drive that went missing around Halloween, a dreidel, and a super-loud toy phone I told my daughter we’d “lost.”
Night 4:
Apparently, there are basketball games on ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT. Even though these are not teams that anyone roots for, we need to watch ALL THE GAMES, because some of the players are on various fake (sorry, “fantasy“) teams and we need them to do well/ poorly/ well, then poorly.
I poured myself a pitcher of wine and used the DVD case as a coaster.
Night 5:
Yes! This is happening. The kids are asleep, the laundry’s done, and I’m in the mood for something hilarious yet relevant to our current political climate. Yup, Veep time!
Hmm.
This show is exhausting. Everyone is kind of mean to each other, runs around trying to fix horrible mistakes, and speaks briskly about topics I know nothing about.
About ten minutes in, my mom called. We talked about my kids for 40 minutes. “What’re you up to tonight?” I asked her.
“Nothing much. Just sitting here, watching Law & Order.”
“What???? What channel is it on? Which episode?”
“The one with the lawyers and the murder and…” Mom trailed off. She had no idea what she was watching.
My husband switched the tv to the football game.
Night 6:
People were talking about Veep again at work, and they’re already on Season 4. I tried to steer the conversation around the first ten minutes of the first episode of Season 1.
“Hey guys, remember that part where they did the political stuff and said mean things and talked a lot about Clean Jobs?”
Silence.
Sigh. I needed to buck up and watch this damn show. It had to at least be less painful than drinking cayenne water.
When I got home, I went on CNN.com to read up on current events and thusly understand the show better. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked by a link to find out what type of cookie my personality is most like.
Stay focused: news, foreign policy, the economy…Nutter Butter! I KNEW IT.
Night 7:
Must. Remember. To. Return. DVD. Today. I’ll just pop by the library on my way home from work, renew it, and binge-watch the whole thing tonight.
Score! Mean Girls is on! I’ll just watch this one part, then switch over to Veep.
Two weeks later:
CRAAAAAAAP! I just found the Veep DVD at the bottom of my work bag. It’s crazy overdue, and the library charges $4/day late fees for DVDs. After paying off my library debt, I trudged home defeated, having just forked over $56 to have watched 10 minutes of a show that no one at work is talking about anymore.
Now everyone is watching Master of None, which of course involves paying for Netflix. Perhaps when my kids turn 18, I’ll finally be able to sit down and binge-watch the past two decades of mind-blowing television.
