We were flipping through the TiVo today, the Girl and I, when I made the blunder of saying, “Let’s see what’s on the TiVo.” She thought that was funny because I usually say TV, not wanting to have to explain what a TiVo is. Naturally, she laughed and asked me, “What’s a TiVo?”

I tried my best to explain it—but of course I was doomed.

I showed her the television and the TiVo box and how they were connected. I showed her the wire coming into the house that connected to the TiVo. Then I told her how television pictures were beamed from space into an antenna on our house, came down the wire into the TiVo where they were recorded, and then displayed on the television.

This was met with some (healthy) skepticism.

“TV comes from outer space?” she asked.

“Well, sort of. There’s a satellite over the planet that beams the pictures down to Earth,” I explained.

“What’s a satellite?”

“It’s… well, it’s like a little spaceship,” I said.

She began to giggle. “Spacemen shoot television to our house?” She wasn’t buying it.

“Well, OK. There aren’t any spacemen. Well, wait, there are people living in space—on a space station—but they’re not the ones who shoot television at us.”

At this point, she fell over laughing.

It is kind of hard to believe. I’ll regroup and try again some other time. Meanwhile, she thinks her daddy is weird but funny and good.

I can live with that.

Comments

1. Cisco on 2006-12-30 07:34:33 wrote: My kids love the fact that they can “pause” the cartoons while they go potty.