The NFL can't keep my dick jokes down

As part of my Officially-NFL-Sanctioned^® Bears Blogging, I sat down yesterday to watch the 4-7 Bears take on the 1-10 St. Louis Rams. I turned on my satellite receiver, tuned to the proper NFL Sunday Ticket channel, and was told I was not authorized to view this program.

Nothing says, "ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOT-BALLLLL???!!!" like a call to DirecTV's customer support. I talked to a very friendly customer-service person, who told me that I was indeed signed up for Sunday Ticket and paid in full, except that I'd had Sunday Ticket removed from my account (don't ask me how all three of those things could be true). "I'm really sorry, but because your account is bundled with Qwest, you'll need to call them to have your service re-activated," she informed me.

Sigh. Apparently we live in an age where you can download porn to your iPhone in the Badlands of South Dakota, while simultaneously listening to a song called, "Porn on my iPhone" and updating your Facebook page to say, "Im in teh BAdlands lookin @ p0rn on my Iphone!!!!," but two giant faceless corporations that have an official programming partnership can't activate a programming package that I have paid for and didn't ask to be deactivated. But I digress.

I went downstairs and dug out a Qwest statement for my account number. On the statement, there was number listed for DTV problems. How customer-friendly and befitting of Qwest's old slogan, "The Spirit of Service." I called the number and played the usual game with the auto-operator, saying, "yes," my account number, and "me no have football on TV, need football!" A pleasant voice informed me that "The Spirit of Service" only works Monday through Friday, and that they were closed on the weekends.

The voice started to say something else, but I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" into the phone, which triggered the "Are you fucking kidding me?" subroutine, which started talking to me about bundles or long distance or if I wanted to become prison pen pals with Qwest CEOs convicted of insider trading. I couldn't figure out how to go back to the previous message, so I had to call back and retrace my steps. Skipping the profanity this time, the voice told me I could speak to tech support. I said, "hell yeah" and was connected...to DirecTV.

Luckily the DTV rep from the previous call had written a novella about my service situation, so the new guy knew what my problem was. He told me I could talk to someone in the Bundles department and he should be able to help me. Away I went on a transfer call...wheeee!

Bundle Man assured me he could fix the problem, and after a pause, he asked, "Is it working now?"

"No, it still says I'm not authorized."

"Okay, give me a moment and I'll try something else."

Thus began our 35-minute dance (after my 20-minute dance with my original calls), with us repeating these steps over and over, as if we were rehearsing for Customer Service With the Stars. We reset the receiver, we took the card out of the receiver, I think he made a blood sacrifice to Odin...no dice.

"You know," I told him, "the irony is I'm going through all this trouble to watch the Rams play the Bears."

"Oh, are you a Bears fan?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Well, at least you have Jay Cutler," he said cheerily, which is like telling someone "Well, at least you have your penis" after having both testicles removed.

Bundle Man was a champ, however, and he kept doing whatever Great and Powerful Oz mojo he was doing. Finally, up popped the Rams/Bears game. Mercifully, the first quarter was over, although I apparently missed the part of the game where the Bears displayed something called, "offensive production."

I thanked Bundle Man and proceeded to watch a terrible, error-prone, boring game that made me hate being a football fan.

However, comedy comes from pain, and as I watched the Bears outplay the hapless Rams, I at least got to bask in the smoggy glow of an ugly win. Chicago actually blocked people and ran the football and put pressure on the quarterback. It was like they were a young, randy team again, as if a magic pill had cured their limp production this season. Which made me realize they had taken something:

ViagRams

Yes, I have managed to bring the high-brown, subtle, sophisticated humor you have all come to love tolerate to an Officially-NFL-Sanctioned^® Bears Blog. Hopefully I won't get called into the commissioner's office and forced to do community service, telling kids around the country about the perils of excessive dick joking.