Family night FAIL

It's Saturday night and we're all back together after being scattered across 3 cities last night. Mike and I had talked about going out for a date, but I thought it would be nice to all cocoon in the house together for family night. Good idea gone bad.

First, we couldn't agree on dinner. Mike wanted to go out. Charlie and I wanted to stay in. Annie wanted to order in something. Great. Except we couldn't decide what to order in. She wanted 5 Guys. Mike wanted Chinese. I just wanted a bowl of cereal. So we declared it "whatever you want for dinner night" and left it at that.

Next was the movie selection. Charlie wanted to watch professional wrestling on TV. Mike wanted Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Robbie did not want to watch a "real people movie." I just wanted to come to a decision. We decided on Harry Potter, figuring Robbie would fall asleep shortly after the movie started.

We sat down (me, not on the couch, just to add to the frustration of the evening), pressed play for Harry Potter and the movie came on sans sound. I thought maybe that's the way it was supposed to be, for dramatic effect. But when the audio kept fading in and out and the video began stuttering, the only drama going on were the protests coming from the family room.`

I called AT&T Uverse customer support to try to a.) get the video on demand working and b.) get our account credited for the rental. The nice woman on the other end of the phone was about the only bright spot in the evening. As she worked to test the lines and re-set the system (yes, Mike, I said go downstairs and check that TV. Really. Now. Just do it.), Annie made herself some shrimp stir-fry and Robbie went to his room to draw pictures.

Twenty minutes later, the account was credited, but the movie wasn't fixed. Charlie was arguing with me about still wanting to watch WWE. When he figured that was a lost cause, he went in the kitchen where he and Annie started to pick at each other.

And that was the end of family night. I'd had enough, so I sent everyone to bed. Mike and I would just have our date night at home, I thought. Until he kept trying to find another movie to rent and I snapped that it would be a waste of another 20 minutes on the phone to get the money back when it didn't work and he snottily meowed at me like a pissy cat, so I stomped off and said, "I'm going to bed."

As I said, family night FAIL.

We'll try again tomorrow.