Dinner and a Movie. Book.

"Yes dear?", so smug, as if he knew I was calling for help.

"The VCR won't work". Of course I was calling for help.

"Allyson, we don't own a VCR, we haven't owned a VCR in more than 10 years".

It was raining, and it had been all day. The girls and I decided to make dinner and watch a movie but, and this happens from time to time, I was having a few technical issues. Like the time when they were both home sick from kindergarten and I promised them Christmas movies but couldn't even get the television to turn on. Or the time I got my phone in Spanish mode and couldn't understand the directions to get back to English.

"Right then, the movie player won't turn on. I am hitting this button, the one on the left, and nothing is happening", as I hit, repeatedly, the open/close button.

"Is it unplugged?"

I got on my knees and asked the girls to do the same, searching everywhere for the plug source. We could hear him laughing. We found nothing unplugged.

"Look at the back, the plugs going into the box, are they plugged in?", and in fact they were not.

I plugged in all cords I could see, popped in Anastasia, pushed the arrow button, and waited for the magic to happen.

"Do you have the right remote?"

Here's where things get tricky. There are something like seven remote controls for this one television and apparently if you don't use the right one nothing happens. 

"First you need to tell the main remote what you want to do. Have you done that?"

"There is a main remote? And you want me to talk to it?"

At this point we could have walked in the rain the four blocks into town, bought three tickets plus popcorn and drinks, and watched a movie while wearing soaking wet clothes, all of which would have been less painful than getting the television to work.

He sighed, "read a book Allyson".

And so we did.

 

Criit'r Gitt'r Jack

I never knew Pre Internet Jack. In our life together he has always had ready access to information, in fact much of our odd courtship was spent, office to office via speakerphone, his manic surfing from place to place while I struggled to understand why Mr. Kurtz's sweep account was not funding correctly. Interesting way to get to know someone, privy to their after hours Internet search, or at least what was shared from our respective desks.

My husband will drive the same car for 20 years. He uses the bank supplied, and not at all current, Blackberry, does not own an iPod and has just recently, because of space issues, bought a flat screen television. His need for immediate gratification manifests itself in frustration at not being able to see the exact menu of the restaurant suggested by his mother for an anniversary celebration, next year, in a small town near the small town where she lives. This sort of incompetence, on the part of the small restaurant, drives him crazy.

Thankfully there are roughly the same number websites devoted to bed bug removal as there are bed bugs in the world, but not in our apartment.

Critt'r Gitt'r Jack turned to his weapon of choice and set about arming himself with information. My two days of extermination were deemed insufficient.The children were moved again, the beds disassembled, the Senator and the President removed to a safe location. I called Orkin.

It's a truly laborious and horrible process. Every single piece of clothing must be removed, bagged and sealed, and then laundered. Mattresses are dragged outside, examined and then coated with toxic fluids meant to kill anything living within. The infested room is cleaned, sprayed, boiled, and inspected. We found nothing, not one trace of bed bug. We moved to our room, clothing bagged, mattresses removed, room scrubbed, not one bug found, or one bug case, or one bug remains.

By day three Jack, now a regular in bed bug chat rooms around the Internet, was exhausted and mentally bug worn; he turned to the experts to explain our bug confusion. Late at night he logged on; true bug hunters are nocturnal, like their prey. Keep your bleary eyes open they urged, you'll find them, they're hiding. We found nothing.

Some suggested we hire a bed bug sniffing dog. While not a professionally trained bugger, but yet, a beagle with a keen sniffer, we turned to Eleanor Roosevelt. Not interested, and tired of being displaced, she opted for a nap.

Project Bug Removal is complete; the beds reassembled, the clothes returned to their clean drawers. Jack, now a para-exterminator, feels we were misdiagnosed. To think I spent years thinking bedbugs were just part of that charming childhood bedtime rhyme, "don't let the bedbugs bite", never to be uttered in our home again.

The Isle of U-Verse

"U-Verse!"

Jack was beyond excited, the day had finally arrived: his television and computer would be able to communicate. But there is more, an all sports option, the ability to see every single sporting event available on television at one time. Picture in picture, what he once thought of as the single greatest invention yet known, was old news, this was revolutionary. No longer could cricket hideaway on some far off channel; it was if a voice from above could shout out to him in a moment of remote confusion, "Jack, someone is catching a trout on channel 834, get there now!".
Calendars were cleared, plans were made, the U-Verse Goddess would descend upon us on a Monday morning and in four short hours all would be right with the world. She arrived on schedule and set to work. Nine hours later, exhausted and sweaty, she appeared on the back stairs: U-Verse would not be ours, not today, maybe someday she promised. A highly specialized doubly trained super smart high tech person would be in our home within 48 hours, there was more work to be done. Defeated, she left.

No one appeared on Tuesday. Repeatedly I called the phone number she provided, the one that, next to the number, read "We are here to help!" only to get a busy signal. Confused, having previously thought that my mother was the only person left on earth without call waiting, I continued to hit redial. Why AT&T had only one line baffled me. There was also a website but for reasons unknown my computer was not working, no Internet available. Jack took over dialing when he came home. It was not a busy signal, we had no phone service, which in an instant explained why my computer was dark as well. We tried the television, nothing. The four hour minor surgery that was to connect us to the world beyond in a way we never thought possible had ended as a nine hour communication lobotomy.

Using his cell phone, Jack found Deborah at a Kentucky call center who was as surprised as we were to find we were left without any service. He was put on hold. Thirty minutes later she returned, there was little that could be done, someone would call us the next day. Saving the details of this four day odyssey through AT&T customer service madness, in fear of incurring high blood pressure related medical bills to compete with my cell phone charges, I relate this exchange: 45 minute holding time to talk to one person, detailed explanation offered of problem, transfer, 20 minute hold, further details needed, transfer, 40 minute hold, friendly voice asking for my phone number, and then, "let me just read through these notes here", 10 minute hold and then, "and how may I help you today?".

Pardon me, you just spent 10 minutes reading your colleague’s notes about this ridiculous situation, surely peppered with commentary about the mental instability of the woman on the other end of the line, and you and your friendly voice would like to know how you can help me today?

By Wednesday I was cranky. Unfinished essays sat on my computer, unable to go anywhere, longing to be completed, and read. My husband suggested I take the girls to the coffee shop and write there. I suggested he take the girls to the office.

On Thursday I had this conversation with another genius at AT&T:

Genius: We’ll have someone out tomorrow to restore your phone service, between 12 and 6.
Happy Customer: I will not be home between 12 and 6.
Genius: Will there be anyone home to let us in?
Happy Customer: No, I will not be here tomorrow.
Genius: Right, we’ll be there between 12 and 6.
Happy Customer: Wonderful. And this is to restore just the phone? What about the other issues?
Genius: Oh, what other issues are you having?

On Friday, the day before we left for a 10 day vacation, a self confident, and highly decorated, installer veteran appeared at my door. Not wanting to insult the woman who left me on a remote island Monday, but doing so anyway, he assured me that this was as simple as flipping a switch and that he would be out of my hair in no time. Six hours later he found the switch, restoring what we once knew, and bringing the hope of trout fishing into our living room.

The next morning we left for Michigan, to the idyllic and tranquil life not bounded by telephones and computers. Where, rather than watch it on television, you can saunter down to the shore any morning and watch people actually fish. Thank goodness we were able to get away.

Don't Turn That Dial

Every day at 7:00 A.M. the alarm clock in my mother's bedroom sounds off, a poorly tuned classical radio station blaring away into her morning. She does not get up, she hasn't in at least five years, when she stopped working. My assumption is that she rolls over and pulls a pillow over her head and continues to sleep, for three to four more hours. She has no idea how to reset the alarm. When she finally wanders downstairs she warms up a cup of coffee in the microwave, the one she has had for 10 years, and will not replace, because it has a dial and the button ones are far too confusing. Her toaster requires her only to turn push down on one lever, nothing more, or she would never have toast to accompany that lukewarm coffee. After numerous complaints about my calling, or lack of, I bought her an answering machine, tired of calling and getting no response. It remained in the box, and still is, I am certain, buried somewhere with all the other electronic wonders that have been gifted to her over the years. Several years ago her brother sent her a television set as the one she was watching was purchased by my father before the Watergate hearings began. The large box sat in the front hall for perhaps four years, an obstacle to climb over when coming in or out of her house, until my sister's kind boyfriend set it up, despite her protests. She hates it. Too big, too confusing, and there is a VCR attached, why on earth would she need that?

This terrifies me.

We have a very high tech, button fronted microwave in our kitchen, although I don't use it often. Our toaster is equally advanced and I rarely find myself at odds with the options available. We don't have an answering machine, voice mail, and I am fully capable of calling to retrieve messages, when necessary, although I rarely do. Don't leave a message if you call, I won't get it, drives my husband bonkers. As does my inability to use the remote, or remotes, we have about 17 of them to control one television set. We recently added to our repertoire, new television, new remote. When walking out of the room, I generally reach over and hit the button on the actual television to turn the thing off which horrifies my husband. There are no less than 8 buttons which, when pushed correctly, will accomplish the exact same thing. Rarely do I push them correctly, recently I heard the neighbor's garage door go up, and down, each time I tried to adjust the volume.

A few years ago I inadvertently set my cell phone to Spanish, every single thing that appeared on the screen was in Spanish. I speak a bit here and there but the intricacies of cell phone directions, those need to be in English, they really do. I worked quite a while on that one myself, finally resorting to the husband, the cell phone genius, and even he was not able to right this wrong. Thankfully a kind soul at work, a native Spanish speaker, was able to get me back to English, after only telling about 42 others. And now it would seem that I have hit a button, or clicked a box or done something to send every blog post I write directly to Facebook. Not all together a bad thing but it was my luck that the first such post to hit the Facebook airwaves was about my new found freedom, which means that my high school drama teacher now knows, should he have read on, that I think my thighs need some reshaping, which they do. Given that I have a high school drama teacher one can safely assume that I am generally alright with putting it all out there, but was this really what I wanted to tell all my friends from grade school?

Jack shakes when I hit the computer, never sure just exactly what I might do. When I accidentally signed up for Facebook, following the step by step direction of a friend who sent me the standard "check me out on Facebook" email, I then, unknowingly, sent out an email to my entire address book, including my father's attorney and the priest who married us, asking them to join me on Facebook. It appears that neither took me up on my offer.

My alarm goes off everyday at 5:45, as per my direction. When we reach the end of the school year and find some civility in waking times, I will shut off the alarm. If for some reason I can't figure that out, then at least I will have the good sense to unplug the thing.