Don’t get me wrong. I love my Tivo. It allows me to record more programming than I can comfortably watch in a week. I can save multiple episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for my three-year-old so he always has age-appropriate viewing choices. The ability to pause live television and fast forward through commercials has generally made family life more enjoyable.

But my Tivo has been acting up lately. What was once a cooperative technological tool that left me with the distinct impression that I was in control, has turned against me with behavior usually reserved for my desktop PC. And now, with a regrettable glance ahead at upcoming descriptions of my favorite shows (which include Grey’s Anatomy and Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Inferno III), I realize that my Tivo may have just revealed the results of two weeks worth of highly anticipated position wrangling and an unlikely final three on Survivor: Fiji. But we’ll get back to that.

When I first plugged in my Tivo, it ran like a charm. I was able to set a “Season Pass” and record every episode of my favorite shows without having to remember what day of the week it was or what time it was on. It was like living in a time/space continuum where no matter what time it was, there was always something on that I wanted to watch. Sigh.

But then my Tivo started to have little hiccups. It would cut off before the end of an episode and display a “partial recording”. At first I blamed my husband for trying to foil my attempts to record a riveting Lifetime movie; naturally a bi-polar adopted child and Meredith Baxter Birney were involved. The problem continued to get worse, with the recording stuttering and skipping around, lots of pixilation and in some instances a need to reboot the whole system. What was once a mere annoyance has turned into a full blown case of Tivo-rage, the details of which are too ugly to put in print.

After some internet research, I’ve discovered that my Tivo is dying. It is worn out from all the pausing and recording and fast-forwarding and rewinding (at least ten rewinds wasted on Janet Jackson alone). Despite being in the midst of its final death gurgle, my Tivo has decided to have the last laugh. I should have guessed something was up a few weeks ago when the last few minutes of Top Design ran into the beginning of the encore presentation of the same episode.  During playback of the beginning/end of the episode played it revealed the final two designers were Carissa and Matt. Now the whole show was ruined because it was obvious that Andrea had created another drab, dungeon-esque room and was finally knocked out of the competition. “See ya later, decorator.” The only saving grace was not being subjected to another Andrea eyesore.