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Jack Bauer? Who’s That?

All right, it’s official. I now have twenty — count ’em, twenty — episodes of 24 on our TiVo. I’ve seen two, maybe three, early in the season, and taped the rest. They’re sitting there, on the TiVo, mocking me. They know I’m not gonna watch them. Hell, I know I’m not gonna watch them. But I can’t delete them, just in case.

I’ve spent the last — what, four months or more? — secretly, silently hoping that I’d miss a week, accidentally, and could delete the rest with a clear conscience. Maybe I’d just call it a wash, or maybe I’d break down in a few months and buy the DVD, but either way, I’d be off the hook. But of course, since that’s what I wanted, it didn’t happen — there was no TiVo glitch, I didn’t forget to save an episode once it taped… we didn’t even get that devastating hurricane or earthquake or ice storm that I hoped for to cut the power for a couple of days. Come on, dammit! How unlucky can I get?

Anyway, now I don’t know what the hell to do. I don’t even know whether the series is over — I’m completely out of touch with what’s happening with the show week to week. And to make it worse, I have friends who watch the thing — friends who want to talk about what’s going on in the show, and who’s exploding what, and who’s been shot, and whether Jack’s daughter is ever gonna get it over with and just get naked. And I can’t talk to any of these people, because I’m so far behind. Last I saw, Jack was stuck in the middle of a prison riot — that shit happened in October, for Chrissakes! I don’t wanna hear from these people what’s going on in May, or even February.

So clearly, just as a precaution, I can’t speak to any of these people until I’ve finished watching the season. It’s unclear when that’s going to happen, of course, or even if it’s going to happen. So it looks like I’m going to have to cut these people off completely. It’s sad, sure, but it beats accidentally hearing that one of the 24 characters has died, or been captured, or something like that. And frankly, it’ll probably be a relief to those people I’ve been trying to avoid talking to since last year. Now, I have to yell, ‘La la la la! I can’t hear you! La la la la!‘ whenever I run into them, which gets a little old for everyone. So cutting them out altogether is probably the way to go.

Luckily, I haven’t found anyone at work who watches the show, so I get to keep my job. And my wife is no further along than I am — that’s a relief, too. That’d be a damned dilemma, if I couldn’t talk to her. But just about everybody else I know is up on what Jack and the Palmers and CTU are up to, so they’re DTM now — Dead To Me. I guess I’ll pretty much be a hermit from now on, speeding to and from work, and talking to no one outiside my wife and coworkers. Oh, and our families, too.

Yeah, I forgot about them. Damn. That’s no good. Anybody know a way to get my in-laws interested in 24? This could be a real opportunity — help me out here, folks.