Did You Just Call Me Paranoid?You're One Of Them, Aren't You?

I've dabbled in paranoia in my days and have usually been called on it by a loved one or a work friend. I grew up in a family of seven, you had to have one eye over your shoulder or you'd find some sort of target on your back, the temptation was too great to not give in to deflecting blame onto someone else. We weren't the moneyed sort, either, so even the outside world became a scapegoat for certain matters like not getting the promotion or even getting fired, it couldn't have anything to do with us, it was THEM.

It wasn't until I lived with The Queen for a while that some of the onion-layers of paranoia were peeled off me, but there's still enough to nag at me once in a while, and when a trusted friend sets you up and then turns on you like one did today, even a recovering paranoid's sponsor would have to admit it does indeed look like that trusted friend and even his friends back home were out to pick my pocket.

Who was that friend? Let's call him Schmeevo.

The wife and I took in Schmeevo about two years ago, offered him space in our place, let him enjoy our favorite shows with us. He wasn't cheap to house, either, he cost us a few hundred just to organize the shows we wanted to record, but he said he'd keep doing that for us as long as he lived. Pretty fair shake, I thought.

Schmeevo was there for us on nights when The Queen or I were up late feeding The Prince during his infancy, ready to watch what he'd recorded for us earlier in the week. Sometimes, when I was at work, I'd realize I'd forgotten to tell Schmeevo what I wanted to see later, but I could get in touch with him over the Internet, and when I'd get home, he'd be waiting, happy to have helped me out and never bragging about having come to my rescue.

As our relationship grew, I began to notice some things about Schmeevo that I didn't like so much. Sometimes he'd forget to which channel to tune, or even insist that he was tuned to the right channel even when faced with proof of the contrary. He just didn't seem to care. Sometimes he'd show up to watch a show looking a total mess, burping and gagging throughout, but before he'd get so obnoxious that I'd have to call his old friends to pick him up, he became well-behaved again and my doubts would pass. Even when I heard that some of his cousins might be better at recording shows for me, recording two at once or even, if I were willing to spend a lot more money, record shows in HD, I'd wave off the thought of parting with Schmeevo. Besides, his cousins didn't want money up front in exchange for promising to help us out for life, they wanted a little bit each month, adding up over time to much more money than I'd paid up front to Schmeevo. Plus, I heard that some of Schmeevo's cousins were offering to send the shows they'd recorded to PCs but not to any of my or anyone else's Macs, and when a Mac owner would ask for their shows, Schmeevo's friends would cough uncomfortably and look in the other direction.

A couple of weeks ago, Schmeevo woke up looking an unhealthy green color and passed me a bold-faced note that he'd encountered a problem and would need up to three hours to figure out the solution. We gave him the time, we were concerned for him, but over the course of the weekend, he kept bringing up some similar problem, sometimes mere seconds after he'd said he was okay. He bounced back for about a week, then got a bad case of the hiccups, interrupting everything we tried to watch, even The Prince's kids shows. I tried talking to him to no avail, then called his friends for help. They asked me a few questions that made me think they'd been through this same problem before, then unceremoniously told me Schmeevo was dead to them and they couldn't help me. I was stunned by their cavalier attitude, but when I pressed further, all they could think about was reminding me that Schmeevo's promise to me was strictly from Schmeevo and that it had died with him. Schmeevo just stared at me as always, one antenna cockily bent to one side.

And wouldn't you figure that this week some enterprising Mac user had figured out a simple way to ask his own friend Schmeevo to send him a show, and before I could try this myself, my Schmeevo quit. It's like his friends knew I'd take advantage of this request of my Schmeevo and they killed him rather than let him do me that favor. He died with some of our most-treasured recordings, shows I know he'd have sent to me if he'd wanted to.

Now Schmeevo's shell is in my basement, his friends having declined to pick him up. To help me adjust, my wife went out and found one of his distant cousins, Deaver, hanging out at the office of our cable provider. He's pledged to pick up where Schmeevo left off, even doing that two-shows-at-once thing and working with HD. Even so, he's not the same. He doesn't speak as well as Schmeevo did, and sometimes he doesn't understand what I'm trying to say. Last night, when The Amazing Race ran past 9 pm due to late football, Deaver just stopped at 9 and switched over to ogle Tyra and some hot models and left us puzzled as to who won the race. He does get us very good recordings, however, better than Schmeevo ever did, and if he ever decides to quit, we can bring him back to that office and find someone to take his place, I'll bet.

So goodbye, Schmeevo. You were good to us at first, when the money we gave you was still in your pocket, but when the money was gone and we weren't going to drop some cash on you every month, you decided you had better things to do. Maybe I'll exact my revenge by swapping out your brain someday. It would serve you right, turncoat.