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Our cable started going out, usually at a critical moments, like just before the announcement of who didn't make it to the next round on American Idol or right before they told us who committed the crime on CSI. Having been repeatedly denied such crucial information, we decided to call the satellite company. That was right about the time that Sharron noticed the lights in our house were dimming and flickering when the TV went out. Either we had a ghost who didn't much care for reality shows and crime dramas or the problem wasn't with the satellite system at all. This left us with the choice of calling an exorcist or an electrical repairman. After I called the exorcist and found out that they charge $2000 for a house call, I opted for an electrician. He was able to fix our problem for only half that amount and without all that irritating chanting and cross-waving.
With brand new circuit breakers in place, all was well, and we were able to catch the important parts of our TV shows. A few months later, we were watching Jeopardy in the bedroom. Alex Trebec was about to announce the answer to the final Jeopardy question. I was giddy with anticipation. Suddenly, the screen flashed, turned blue, and said, "Searching for satellite." "I would have never have guessed that," I said to Sharron. "I was going to say, 'Who is Euripides?' " "Bruce, that's not the answer or the question. The TV just went out." Video and audio returned during the intro to the next show. We hoped the outage was just a glitch, but after missing out on which celebrity couple had broken up that week, we knew we had a problem again. After a couple days, we couldn't get anything on the TV at all. Not to be left out, the downstairs TV began to turn off and on just like the upstairs one. We called the satellite company and set up an appointment for the weekend. The weekend arrived and so did our "technician." Notice the use of quotes. If the technician had not knocked on our door and announced who he was, I might have thought he had come to steal our TVs rather than to repair them. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, baggy pants hung down low, and had the general demeanor of a gangbanger. My confidence in his abilities was immediately shaken when he "repaired" the upstairs TV but didn't bother to thoroughly test it afterwards. When I changed the station, the TV immediately reverted to the "searching for satellite" screen, which I had become to think of as a television show all its own. The ratings people were probably thinking, Boy, that Searching for Satellite show must be really good. The Smiths watch it all the time! Our "technician" was dismayed that changing the channel caused a problem. I half expected him to tell me that our TV was fine and that it was my desire to see what was on other stations that was causing the difficulty. Instead, he just looked confused. I then learned his method of repairing things. One way to repair technical issues is to work through a system and see which parts are working, thereby enabling yourself to narrow down the cause of the problem. This is called "troubleshooting." Gangster Joe had other things in mind. His "method" was to randomly do things he had seen other technicians do on the satellite repairman training videotape he had watched the day before. Climbing up on our roof seemed like fun, so he asked if he could borrow our ladder. "I left mine at the last house," he explained. "Ah." He was at our house for three hours - no exaggeration. At one point he thought he had fixed the TV and said, "I can't believe it! All of that because of a kink in the cable." Then we discovered that the TV still wasn't working, and there went that theory. "I don't know what to do," he said a bit later on as he stood beside the downstairs TV. I handed him a Bible. "Here," I said. "Wave this over it." That didn't seem to work, so he resumed what he had been doing before, arguing with other technicians over the walkie-talkie. Clearly they had become as irritated with him as we were beginning to be. That afternoon, when Gangster Joe had miraculously gotten both TVs to work at the same time, I asked him what he done. This is an exact quote: "I don't know. I just kept replacing things until it worked." We had begun to think of him as our own personal repairman who lived with us and perpetually walked around the house messing with TV sets and cords, so it was kind of a shock when he finally left. But he was considerate in that regard, he left things behind for us to remember him by, no ladders, just little wire cuttings and cable connectors. There are even a couple of them still sitting on our roof. They glisten brightly when the evening sun catches them just right. The day after the repairman left, I went into the living room to watch some golf. I sat down, clicked the remote, and the TV wouldn't turn on. After some troubleshooting of my own, I discovered that the "new" satellite receiver we had been given was actually a refurbished receiver. Upon close inspection, it appeared to have been mauled by a bear. It was obviously broken. So we called the satellite company. And, as I've heard it said in some of those shows that I've actually been able to watch, it wasn't the end; it was just the beginning... |
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