Taping the `Sopranos' is an offer you'd like to refuse
by Beth Teitell

Wednesday, March 14, 2001

Friends don't let friends drive drunk. Everyone knows that.

But do friends ask friends to tape ``The Sopranos''?

Do friends remain friends with friends who ask them to tape ``The Sopranos''?

``There should be a cable subscriber's bill of rights,'' a woman responded when I asked if she knew anyone who had been pressed into taping service this season. I had hit a nerve, and it was raw.

``I get cable, and all of a sudden I have to tape every Dickens special for my friend Jenny,'' she said. ``There should be some kind of threshold - like asking a person to tape one episode of `Sex in the City' is OK, but an entire season is not.''

``GET CABLE!'' she yelled, safe in the knowledge that her tormenter couldn't hear her.

``I'm getting out a lot of supressed feelings,'' she added. ``Thank you.''

What is it about the simple act of pressing ``play'' and ``record'' at the same time that is almost unspeakably annoying?

``There are so many issues,'' a taper told me. ``First, you're the one paying for the premium channels and yet you're also the one doing all the work. Second: The person who's too cheap to pay 10 bucks for HBO never gives you tapes, either. They always `forget.'

``And third: What if you go out that night and forget to set the VCR? Should you feel guilty? Apologize? Rush home?''

No, of course not, although in the twisted, dysfunctional world of the taper-tapee, it happens. The person without the cable actually becomes the boss.

``They essentially take over your whole home,'' said a man who's determined to avoid taping entanglements.

``You can't watch anything else when that show is on. And unless you know how to program your VCR, you certainly can't go out. If there's a storm, you have to worry about a power outage. It's like agreeing to take on the responsibilities that come when you sit in the emergency exit row on an airplane. The pressure is almost unbearable.''

One taper I spoke with used ``anger'' and ``regret'' to describe a long-term taping relationship, sounding more like an analysand than a person with a 32-inch Sony and a nice cable package. If the tapee were her boyfriend, at least she could break up with him, but as it is, she's stuck. ``I'm in denial,'' she said. ``It's the only way I can cope.''

In a passive-agressive way she fantasizes about her VCR breaking, but is too chicken to lie. Nature has no wrath like a tapee denied his show.

Occasionally you hear about someone who got out, but more often, entering into a taping relationship is like stepping in quicksand: Struggling doesn't help - you're going down.

That's because the person who agrees to tape is no match for the person with the chutzpah to ask a fellow human being to do something so difficult.

``In my experience,'' one tapee manque told me, ``people would rather help you move than tape a show on the Discovery Channel for you.

``People donate bone marrow for people they've ever met,'' he added, ``but if they had a nationwide drive trying to match people who needed programs recorded with those who have cable and VCRs, they'd come up empty.''

Of course. The bone-marrow procedure, painful as it is, is at least a one-time deal.