For a few moments, I felt as if I had lost a child.

I came home from work on Monday to an empty house. I had to stay late for an event at work, so Maria took Bridget with her to the PTO meeting.

I figured I would cook myself a small dinner, plop myself down in front of the television, and relax until they got home.

But something funny happened when I went into the living room to turn on the TV. The box on top of the TV was flashing some crazy numbers. I had no idea what was happening.

I did what any guy would do in the situation. I unplugged the cable box, then plugged it back in.

Nothing changed. The numbers kept appearing. So I pushed a few buttons. Nothing. I unplugged it again and plugged it back in. Still nothing. So I did it again and again and again.

I couldn’t understand why that didn’t work. If you repeatedly unplug and re-plug something, that should fix things. That’s how electronics work, right?

Finally, I broke down and called the cable company. They “sent a signal” to the box, but I got zilch. I didn’t know what to do.

All of a sudden, I panicked because it was almost 8 on a Monday night. The cable box on the fritz was hooked up to the Tivo, which we use to record our favorite shows. I have a DVR in the basement, but that’s usually just for me, and we have managed to restrain ourselves and not put a DVR in the bedroom.

This escalated to a crisis in no time flat. The show we record at 8 didn’t matter that much, but I really worried about “How I Met Your Mother” at 8:30.

Sure, we have two other TVs in the house, but we have settled into such a nice routine that this malfunction really threw everything for a loop. We watch some shows in the bedroom and some in the living room. Monday is a night to watch the living room TV.

With Maria not due home until sometime between 8 and 9 and the task of making sure Bridget got to bed ready on time, I had to call an audible.

I managed to set the show to record on the basement TV. I knew that wouldn’t be the first place Maria would want to watch it, but it would have to do.

They didn’t get home until almost 8:45, which meant I managed to watch most of the show. I followed the rest from the bedroom while Bridget got ready for bed.

We managed to survive the crisis, and Maria got a new cable box before Thursday, the next day we had shows we needed to record.

At first, the new box only gave us half the channels we pay for, but one call to the cable company solved that problem.

That made me feel so good because I thought my family had suffered enough for one week. I said a prayer of thanks when I got to watch the uncut version of the second Austin Powers movie on my couch that night.