Night, Night, Sweet Cableless Dreams

Our new television had a stroke last night. We lost picture and sound. “No signal” flashed its ever-threatening warning that the television needed expert advice. Hubby started by calling our cable company who, after reading the scripted advice without success, told him to call the manufacturer. I was stunned that they, like the cable company, had 24-hour service to guide electronically clueless seniors like us revive their televisions late at night.

I don’t know which one – cable or manufacturer - asked if we had a Wii – an electronic game you hook up to televisions – but Hubby made the mistake of saying, “Yes, our grandkids were playing with one when they were here last week.”

At first, the expert didn’t care when Hubby told him the truth – it was hooked up to another television in another room. The expert immediately diagnosed the Wii, which had been unhooked five days previous, packed up, and was now hooked up to a television in a basement in Atlanta, was the cause of our problem. I guess when Hubby repeated this to him several times in an anything but soft voice, the expert digested what this meant and then read pages from a different script. Somehow, the picture returned – without sound. Neither the cable nor the manufacturer would accept blame for the problem – but the cable company was willing to schedule a service call.

Since no repairperson can show until Friday, we bribed our Florida son with his favorite dinner and he came to see if he could help. He fidgeted with some stuff, unhooked something that begins with a series of alphabet letters, rehooked it up to restore sound until the cable company comes.

I miss the old days when televisions simply turned on and off and had no extra boxes with all sorts of programs attached to them. However, look at how many new jobs all these gadgets have created – like the writers of scripts to read to ol’ folks at 11 o’clock at night. They know we desperately need the sound of the television to put us to sleep. Last night, instead of listening to the television for our bedtime story, we listened to an unknown voice read a very useless script. Tonight, thanks to our son, the news broadcaster will hopefully bore me to sleep once again.