Remember a month or two ago when all the news broadcasts and websites were telling us some hackers were accessing private data via our wireless routers? They told us to reboot our routers immediately or disaster would ensue. Failure to do so would result in thieves stealing our passwords and banking information, making the contents of our fridges go bad, and reprogramming our brains to believe trees are invisible and bees are a beverage.

Rebooting the router wasn’t hard, so I did that without technical disaster. But my son is a professional tech writer and expert, and he messaged me to ask which router I had. I told him, and I could almost see the message window recoil in horror. I was still using the router he’d installed for us several years ago, and (apparently) that model was especially vulnerable to hacking shenanigans.

Fortunately for me, as a result of his job, he literally has drawers full of phones and routers and tablets and all manner of tech gizmos. He informed me he was sending me a better, newer, more secure router immediately, which he did.

A couple of weeks later, he messaged to ask if I’d installed the new router. I had not. Why? Because I knew, deep in my slightly Luddite bones, that I’d manage to fuck it up. He’d sent me the link to the app I needed to set it up quickly and easily…but I knew better.

Now, about ten days after his “you really need to install that” message, I decided I’d better do it, because not much stings more than weary disapproval from a guy whose diapers you changed for two years.

The first obstacle was the massive Gordian knot of cords and cables behind the TV stand in the living room, where the main cable box, modem, and router live. Once I identified which plug went to the modem, I disconnected it. The plug is still under the TV stand, though, because I couldn’t untangle the wire from the rest of the mess without pulling every device, including the TV, off the stand, and I am not in the mood to deal with that shit today.

I plugged in the new router and opened the app on my phone, held it over the router, and that part actually went pretty well. I reset my signal extender in the kitchen, and internet was restored to my laptop. Victory!

I was about to pay for my hubris.

The TV in the living room was fine. But we only use that when we have company that might want to sit on a slightly less dog-fur-infested couch. I spend 99% of my waking hours in the family room, working with the TV on, and later binge-watching streaming video and knitting. And that TV couldn’t find the TiVo box. Neither could the TV in Tom’s lair, where he spends a good portion of his evenings and weekends.

Rackenfrazzle.

I did all the usual stuff. I unplugged and re-plugged. I turned off and on. I went to TiVo Central and tried everything I could in the settings. I reestablished the internet connection…but it still wouldn’t go to TV mode, which is really its only job.

I knew it. I just knew it. Now I was going to have to call Suddenlink, something that tends to make me a stabby, frustrated, vengeful bucket of rage. I went through the automated fixes first, but resetting the modem didn’t do anything, so I repeated “representative” at every prompt until I got a human. As it turns out, a highly unhelpful human.

She seriously had no idea what to do. There was a lot of “Um…yeah…” and “Well…” and “I don’t know…” going on. Without offering even one semi-helpful solution, she said, “Yeah, the TiVo is pretty sensitive. There’s really not anything I can do from here. They like the technicians to do that manually.”

I wondered why they’d “upgraded” us to TiVo from the older but much less shitty cable boxes. I wondered why they’d choose a type of service that was so touchy that simply installing a new router would require a technician visit. I wondered how long it would be before a technician could be dispatched.

I suggested she might like to transfer me to someone (with a brain…bonus points to me for not saying that part out loud) who might have some idea of how to resolve this without a technician coming out. No, that wouldn’t help. So, she scheduled a technician for tomorrow between 4-6 p.m.

Fine. I could watch in the living room today, I guessed. My internet is working, so…yay.

I hung up and started thinking. I used my brain, which is 100% not trained in Suddenlink Technical Support, but is not stupid. And my brain said, “Well, yeah, the TV in the living room, which is connected directly to the main TiVo box (not the two TiVo minis that control the TVs in the family room and Tom’s lair), does work fine. But that main unit is, what, like the brain of the whole set-up, right?” I agreed with my not-stupid brain. “So,” it continued, “even though that TV works, wouldn’t it make sense to maybe unplug and reset the main unit and see what happens?”

That seemed super smart to me, and probably something someone who is paid actual money by the people who installed this equipment to resolve such issues should have suggested.

So, I shuffled back to the living room, unplugged the main TiVo box, plugged it back in, and returned to my natural habitat on the couch in the family room and turned on that TV.

And…it worked perfectly.

I hit redial on my phone and canceled tomorrow’s technician appointment roughly three minutes after I’d made it.

I feel like I should get a job at Suddenlink Tech Support, but I’m pretty sure they’d have to delete at least half my IQ points. If their IQ-deleting system is able to connect to the network, of course.

I lost over an hour from my day, but at least the evening binge-watching shall go on unimpeded.