We emptied our four spare change jars into the big canvas bag that Jackson keeps his wooden blocks in, and Jack hauled it to the coin-counting thing at Ralph's. Before he left he weighed the bag on our bathroom scale: forty pounds. I figured it was maybe $150 tops. It was never our French Laundry fund, but we always figured it'd add up to enough for a trip to all-you-can-eat half-price sushi buffet. (Just kidding! I would never buy day-old sushi, except for the cat. If we had a cat that wasn't already buried in the backyard.)

Anyway, I was wrong: it was $310. Months and years of just sitting there, gloating silently, four jars spilling over like jangly little Jabba the Hutts, their weight silently bowing our dusty, tchotchke-filled bookshelves. Three hundred and ten dollars. So, yes, decent, real sushi, last night, and a dream come true this morning: a TiVo machine. I'm so excited. I bought a TiVo machine, Internet! Naturally, my priorities are such that I must first blog about it rather than set it up.

O magical TiVo! So now when Jackson shouts, "Mom! Rewind that! I want to see Janet Jackson's tit again!" I can do it! O benevolent technology that will save for me all the Sopranos episodes I find it inconvenient to watch at their original air time. O capturer of midweek afternoon Yankees games, you will soon be in possession of my very soul.