Dona E. Bowens

I want to be in on the trend. I want to understand the memes and the cultural references. I want to watch Ted Lasso but Apple TV hates me.

See, what had happened was, I went to sign-up for a seven-day trial of Apple TV for the express purpose of watching Ted Lasso. I didn’t want to commit to a subscription because I have more of those than I can keep track of. Don’t we all? HBO (I’ll never call it “Max”), Netflix, PBS (I’m a bougie nerd, yes), Peacock (Before Snoop Dogg made it cool during the Olympics), Prime Video, Paramount+, Spotify and for a time, a Spanish language streaming service through YouTube that allowed me to watch Euro Cup because futbol is some serious residue that I have no desire to rid myself of. Those are my streaming subscriptions that come off the top of my head. I can assure you that every month I get text messages from my bank saying, “$14.99 was paid to ShitShowStreaming. Your balance is now -$4,756. Bitch, please make a deposit like yesterday!” Then I’m left scratching my head wondering when I signed up to ShitShowStreaming and do they host the Marvel Movies?

I thought I could binge watch Ted Lasso in 7 days so why commit to a subscription? It’s summer, I’m a teacher sitting around with a thumb in my ass, what else would I be doing but binging? I know I’m on the cusp of being technology ignorant. If you’re lucky enough to live long enough, it’ll happen to you, too. In fact, I recently decided that I’m going to make ZERO effort to understand this new-fangled AI mess. Meh, I don’t have enough bandwidth for that. Part of my tech ignorance relates to streaming service shit. Apparently I have to sign-up for Apple TV through Amazon. Is that how it works, because that’s what I did. Downloaded the app on the ole smart TV, gathered my accoutrement (devil’s lettuce, lemonade, a blankie) and prepared to join the masses in a Lasso Love Fest.

But Alas! Foiled again 😦

The app opened all in Spanish. OK. You know I don’t mind Spanish. In fact, I can only really enjoy futbol with Spanish commentary and thus my rando subscription to that YouTube channel. However! I do not and did not want to watch Lasso in Spanish. I don’t care that the word “Lasso” is of Spanish origin. There’s always something lost in translation. Then it dawned on me. Something like this has happened before. I’d opened my Amazon Prime subscription while was I still in Barcelona. When I made the leap across the sea and back to America, this was a problem that I thought I’d solved. Switched my address, the language of the site, all of that. But for some reason I can’t work out, you know my escalating tech ignorance, for some things, Amazon just refuses to believe (not unlike myself) that I live in America now. Don’t come at me talking about, “Just change the language of Lasso using preferences.” My people, Lasso wasn’t even offered in the Spanish market I was confined to.

(sigh) (BIG SIGH)

So, I said all this to say, who got that Apple TV password? (Not you, Valerie. I’m already freeloading on your HULU.) The residue is real, y’all.