Brown Cable Box

One of the monumental moments of my life was when I was in the 6th grade, and my parents finally caved in and got cable. I ran home from school and saw that beautiful brown box with push buttons attached by a brown wire to the TV. I no longer had to get off of my couch to change the station or adjust the rabbit ears. I was finally living the good life.

I grabbed some pop rocks and fired up the TV to see a gorgeous woman by the name of Adam Curry on MTV announcing UB40 singing "Red Red Wine" in what they called a music video. I clicked for hours, and I swore I would never watch network TV again.

I had heard a rumor going around school that if you pressed 9 and 3 down at the same time then you would get the Playboy channel. I remember sitting there in my Vision skateboarding t-shirt and stonewashed jeans waiting for my parents to go to bed.

Then it happened!

The instant I pushed the buttons together I saw a split second of a nipple. It was the most glorious split second of my life. It was gone in a flash as it got scrambled. You could hear the commentary of what was going on, and every so often you would get a good 1-3 seconds of full frontal nudity. I would sit there for hours and probably see 20 seconds of nudity, but it was all worthwhile.

Soon the 9 and the 3 buttons were more worn than the other buttons, and I remember my embarrassment as I went to the parish priest for confession and said, "I lied to my parents. I lied to my teachers, and I am having impure thoughts about blurry women." I got three Hail Marys and all was good.

A few years later we would get a de-scrambler that let us get all the channels for free. By this time there was a channel called Spice which took things a lot further than Playboy.

I always remember the de-scrambler getting hot within five minutes, and have no idea how it didn't melt the TV. It was great for keeping my elios pizza warm though.

Every so often I like to get blind drunk at strip clubs. The girls get really blurry looking, and I get nostalgic for the days when the scrambled Playboy girls used to make me feel funny in my stonewashed jeans.

It would have been cool to see Adam Curry on Playboy. She was super hot. She was much hotter than Downtown Julie Brown.