As my daughter drove away I found myself alone in her house, seated firmly on the couch, facing the day with great trepidation. It’s not that she was leaving me alone with the children. I’m perfectly okay with that. It’s that she was leaving me alone with her television set, and the corresponding remote control. Actually, make that three remote controls. To me there is no greater mystery in life than how the heck, exactly, does her television set work. And why, oh why, should it take three remote controls to operate it?!
Yes of course, she had written it all down for me. Unfortunately she’d left the paper on the coffee table and my fifteen month-old grandson ripped it all to smithereens and flushed it down the toilet. That was before my daughter had even gotten out of the driveway. This event was followed immediately by my four year old grand-daughter requesting ever so cutely to watch the Disney Channel. And then she asked again. And then again. And, …you get the picture. I had no earthly idea how to do that. I’d walk over hot coals to bring happiness to that little girl, but I wasn’t too sure I could get her the Disney Channel.
I had passed the CPA exam on the first try, studied mechanical engineering for fun, and graduated valedictorian of my high school class (of 40 people)(in 1969). I knew I could master one more mighty mental milestone. My inevitable success would throw down a new marker in the epistemology of logic. Rounding up the three remotes, I brilliantly matched up the trade name on each with the trade name on the corresponding pertinent device. I was talking to myself as I went. I find that always makes things easier. The TV itself was a Vizio, so I found the Vizio remote. The DVD/Blueray player (how is a Blueray different from a DVD anyway?) was an LG. I dutifully laid the LG remote next to the Vizio remote on the couch. The third remote carried the trade name Charter/Spectrum. That of course, was for the cable box. (Why don’t they just roll all the cable TV/broadband services into one gigantic company and allow us a lifetime subscription in exchange for our firstborn child? They’re almost there already anyway.)
First, I reasoned, I needed the TV set on. I pushed the power button on the Vizio remote. A blue screen appeared with the message ‘No Signal’ bouncing around on it every few seconds. I wanted the Disney Channel, and wasn’t going to play a DVD, so I ignored the LG remote. But of course, I reasoned, I needed the cable, so I grabbed the Spectrum remote and pushed the power button on it. Nothing happened. I pushed the button again, and nothing happened again. I will confess that my next move was consistent with my entire lifestyle. I grabbed the two remotes of interest and erupted in a veritable flurry of button pushing. I thumbed every button in sight as fast as I possibly could, at random. That didn’t work.
My grand-daughter, being a very wise four year-old, gave up on the Disney. She wandered off to play video poker on my cell phone. Then she downloaded a $59 game app and charged it to my account.
Forty-five minutes later I was sweaty and exhausted. I had tried everything. I figure with the same amount of effort I could have hacked Hillary’s emails myself, and we wouldn’t have needed the Russians. Nevertheless, there was no Disney Channel. There was also no Weather Channel, no South Park, and no Kardashians. Worst of all, I was deprived of watching a forty-nine-and-a-half year old woman with head to toe tattoos pick out a $50,000 wedding dress for her fourth marriage.
I swallowed my pride (which isn’t so bad, since I have very little left) and called my daughter. She wasn’t surprised, having received the same call from me a half-dozen times before. She is a nurse and I am proud of her and she cares for people in the most dire of circumstances. And that is good, because when I find myself in the same room with her TV, well, you’re looking at a man in dire circumstances. She sighed and reminded me it wasn’t just a matter of turning the TV on. I had to select the proper signal source, which I could do by pushing this little button at the bottom of the Vizio device and then toggle that little button at the top until it said HDMI2. Then I should recall that although they had cable into their house they had limited cable channels and I had to get Disney (or just about anything else) from a streaming service, which came through the DVD player. Why on earth do I need the DVD player if I’m not playing a DVD, I ask. Because, she reminds me, their DVD player also has the built-in wireless receiver for her home Wi-Fi. At any rate, it turns out I needed that third remote control after all, and I dutifully picked it up and did as I was told.
Finally, after truly heroic effort, I had connected with NatGeo and spent 58 minutes watching a couple of fools living above the Arctic Circle in an old refrigerator box they’d had flown in and parachuted to the frozen ground. I’d been transfixed by their brilliance as they covered the old crate with sphagnum moss for insulation and learned to operate the tiny heater which burned congealed animal fat. They purported to spend countless hours tromping across the tundra in search of Caribou and ground squirrels which might fall prey to their 357 Magnum Winchester lever action rifle. (They claimed to be living off the land, so I guess they found that firearm just lying about on the ground?) Despite all the hunting scenes, they seemed to eat mostly dried nuts and granola bars. Not sure where they got those. Maybe they were supplied by the camera crew.
Suddenly, in one morning scene, upon emerging from the tiny wooden living space and intent on answering the call of nature (I’m not referring to Jack London here) Fool #1 was grabbed by a gigantic polar bear, while Fool #2 grabbed the rifle and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Just at that very moment my little grandson grabbed one of the three remote controls for the TV system and pushed a button. Which button, I will never know. What I do know is that everything went dark. Instantaneously. Noooo!!! I want to know if that polar bear enjoyed his breakfast!!!