When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go – DOWNTON!
See what I did there with that old school Petula Clark song, Downtown? Clever, I know. Welcome back Girl Meets Nerd readers! Today’s blog has a connection to where I have been these past few weeks, so sit tight because we will get to that in a bit. First, I need to take you back. All the way back to early 2012 (I think it could be late 2011. Who really knows? Obviously not moi).
It was a Saturday night, (okay, it had to be 2012 if it was a Saturday and I was home, because I was training for my half marathon and had long runs on Sundays. But I digress…) and my husband was at work slinging back drinks at an unnamed restaurant in west Omaha that serves margaritas to a lot of white people; that is really all you need to know about that place. As I stayed home with the most adorable pugs in Dundee (Beeps and Mabel Baum, obviously), I decided to see what was on the good old instant watch section of Netflix. That’s where I found it. Downton Abbey, Season One. I remembered it got a lot of Emmy love that fall, so I thought what the hell, might as well give it a try.
So I began…and seven hours later, Downton Abbey was over, and I was all in. Like, this is some Once Upon A Time all in bullshit. ALL IN!
The next day, when I told my husband what I had done on my uber-eventful Saturday night, he looked at me with this quizzical look.
“You watched what?” he said.
“Downton Abbey. It’s a British soap opera set in the 1900’s,” I replied.
“Really? You liked that?” he said again, with a statement of disbelief.
“Yes. I like period things, why do I always have to remind you that I liked Pride & Prejudice?” I barked back. “Plus, I think you should watch it. I’m serious. It’s really good. Also, Patton Oswalt is obsessed with it and you like him.”
For the next week, Downton Abbey was all I would talk about to my husband. Finally, he queued it up. Within a week, he had fallen in love with Carson, Bates, and Matthew Crawley just like the rest of the world (or at least me).
When season two started, we made sure to record and watch it every Sunday night. I started to struggle a bit with some of the stories in season two, but my husband’s love seemed to grow even more.
Last month, when season three started, my husband nearly had a heart attack because he thought we weren’t set up to record it. Luckily, I’m on top of shit like this and had it ready to go. When we sat down to eat dinner, he kept expressing his excitement that Downton Abbey was back. He wanted to watch it immediately. For some reason, the more he gets excited for this show, the less interested I become. Someone should do a study about why this happens. I volunteer myself and my husband in the name of science.
When the season opener – which was TWO HOURS LONG (That is way too long for anything. Yes, I may have a slight case of ADD) – ended, he turned to me and exclaimed, “Babes, I think Downton Abbey might be my favorite show.”
HE. IS. SERIOUS.
I have no words. I mean, it’s a good show, but let’s not lie: season two and three kind of went to crap. It is still very much enjoyable, but the glory that is season one has never been achieved since. It almost peaked too early (speaking of peaking too early, I love me some Jennifer Lawrence, I hope she continues to make good movies and didn’t peak with this Oscar win).
I’m sure by now you are ready for me to wrap it up… Well too bad. I’ve been gone all month, so this one has some girth to it (that’s what she said). Let’s get back to what I mentioned in the beginning, where I have been.
My husband was heading over to Europe to go on tour with his band, and I was going to tag along as a real life Penny Lane (minus the sleeping with the guitarist and ODing on pills). The night before we left – Super Bowl Sunday to be exact, we queued up Downton Abbey on our DVR. And then it happened. For whatever reason, the episode recorded but all we saw was a black screen. Nothing would play. We checked some other recordings from the past week and it was all the same. In frustration, my husband deleted the episode, thinking it was lost.
The next day, Monday, we were set to leave to Dublin at 2:18pm. While waiting for his mom to take us to the airport, his band mate Landon called and said the flight had been bumped up to 1:23 pm and was boarding now (it was 1:00 pm when he called us). We cancelled our ride, jumped in the devil (that is the name of my car – my license plate has 666 on it, sooo…), and sped to the airport.
After that, a whole gaggle of nonsense transpired that is comical but is for another time and place. So, while waiting for our new flight at 3:30 pm, my husband grabbed some beers and sat at the airport bar to try and figure out what happened with our flight. (Side note: I’m pretty sure I started a revolution via twitter that day. I felt like Enjolras in Les Miserables.) Taking a break from the revolution I had started, I saw my husband looking super frustrated. I assumed it was due to the flight issues we were having, but oh no it was not. I finally asked what was wrong.
My husband: “Well, due to the flight issues, Downton Abbey didn’t finish downloading. Great.”
I had no response. We were going on an international flight… THEY HAVE MOVIES FOR US TO WATCH. Nope, he was determined to get us some Downton Abbey. He tried to download it again on his tour bus over in Dublin. Fail. Tried to download it again in a day room in Manchester. Again, fail. Finally, at our hotel at Heathrow Airport, he tried once again. FAIL.
The only thing more devastating to happen to him than this was probably (SPOILER ALERT) when Lady Sybil died.
When we got to New York, I think he finally got all the episodes downloaded. So now he could begin his two week East coast tour watching his favorite lady show. For someone who went to such great lengths to download his favorite show, you would think we would have at least watched them while out on the road. Alas, no we did not. In fact, it appears he has fallen in love with Enlightened over the past few weeks. Enlightened is becoming his mistress. Downton Abbey is not going to like that. They might just kill off another main character in protest. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
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Kacie Baum is a professional partier, mother of two pugs, and the wife of Matt Baum. She tolerates the constant presence of the Two-Headed Nerd in her home each week. She did not write this bio. Pre-THN entries of Girl Meets Nerd can be found here.
