Acquiring Signal

by Patti


We had the same television in our family room since S was born. That's 11 years. And in technology time, I'm pretty sure that is actually more like 6923 years.

A couple of years ago my brother-in-law was living with us for a while, and he, being the television addict that he is, immediately ran out and bought a flat screen TV. M, being the proud "I'll buy my OWN flat screen TV --- IF I want it" kind of man that he is, relegated the stylish, sleek, expensive, MODERN television to the basement, where it got good use only thanks to my brother-in-law and S's Wii-lovin' friends. (And late nights visits from me, where I may or may not have licked that smooth, flat screen in the dark.)  But then my brother-in-law moved out, and, as a parting gift of "thanks for letting me mooch off of you for a year", he gave us the flat screen.

That was almost two years ago. And the television stayed in our basement - pretty, shiny, MODERN, largely ignored. "Don't you think we should maybe think about swapping our old TV with the flat screen. I mean, we never go down to the basement,and that TV... it's so nice, and it's not being used. At all." I often said to M, hoping to appeal to his ever-present practical side.

My rational arguments finally made sense, and the moment he caved and shrugged his shoulders, I got busy. I scored the perfect TV stand on Craigslist, and this past Saturday, while M was at work, I hauled it in the backseat of my car from the seller's house to our house, and began the machinations of bringing our family room into 2012. I disconnected cables and wires wildly, mentally taking a snapshot of where each one belonged. I rolled up the rug and dragged the heavy media armoir that had housed the old TV into our kitchen, and I then carried our dinosaur television - which appeared to also weigh as much as a dinosaur - down to the basement. In the process, I'm pretty sure I felt a vital cable disconnect in my brain - one that seemed to be attached to my lower back.

Once I got to the basement, I began unhooking all of the craziness down there, taking more mental snapshots of the setup so that I could repeat it upstairs. We have DISH satellite, so the setup requires a fancy box that not only delivers our channels, it also delivers the HD to our TV. I felt so snappy, alive, capable! I told S that I'd be done in less than an hour, and then we could go out and grab some lunch.

Three. Hours. Later? I was still at it. But by this point, I no longer felt alive! Capable! Snappy! I felt dead! Dumb! Crabby! The cables and connections made no sense, and no matter which configuration I attempted, all I ever got was an "Acquiring Signal" that froze on the flat screen. And I hadn't even BEGUN the dinosaur connection downstairs. Not only that, but the TV stand I had just scored? Looked college dorm-ish and cheap in our family room. The flat screen, once majestic in the basement, now looked small and, well, flat. "What have I DONE?" I lamented to nobody in particular.
"Mom, I'm hungry! You told me we were leaving soon, and that was HOURS ago!"

Just as I was about lay on the floor in surrender, M came home to a jungle of cables and wires and two dead TVs.
"Hi babe!" I called out, all chipper and jauntily, attempting to conceal the half-assed, half-done job now splayed out before us. "Don't you just LOVE our new TV stand? I got it off Craigslist. Oh! I can't get the cable to work. I've tried everything. Can you try?"
"MO-OM! I'm STARVING!"
M looked around, surveying the technological warfare in our family room. Then he calmly began to unravel the snakes of wires. I instantly felt better - I just knew he'd be able to figure it out.
"MOM, I'm DYING of STARVATION!"
"Why don't you take S to get something to eat, and stop and pick up some of these?" He held up some of those fancy red/yellow/white wires that apparently make things work.
"Okay - be back soon!"

S and I were gone for about an hour, and when we returned, I found M lounging on the deck, talking on the phone. I gave him a "thumbs up" question, and he thumbs downed me back. I rushed into the family room to find the cables and wires all neatly rolled up, the flat screen sad and useless on its new, ugly, college dorm-y stand. M walked in behind me. "What happened?" I asked.
"I can't figure it out."
My heart sank. M is the most MacGyver-y person I know; that man can figure out or fix anything. The fact that he was waving his white flag at our TV problem led me to believe we were destined to Jenga and Monopoly for the rest of our lives. "That does it! I"m calling DISH." I punched the number into the phone, put up with 10 minutes of prompts, and finally got a live guy. I explained the situation to him, and he immediately calmed my fears, telling me he could fix my problem in his sleep. "Even if you can't see it?" I asked him. "Cuz it's realllly hard to explain."
"Trust me."

So I spent 20 minutes on the phone with the cockiest tech support dude I have ever encountered, and when I saw the "Acquiring Signal" across my TV, and then a beautiful blaze of blue indicating the signal had actually been acquired, I literally whooped into the phone and started jumping around like an idiot with his pants on fire. "Ohmygod, you are SOOOO smart!" I gushed. "I have been working on this for, like, SEVEN HOURS!" My whooping and gushing and jumping only served to further cockyfy him, but I didn't care. At that moment, I had to rate getting our DISH satellite to work only second to giving birth to my child. Maybe even first since there was no pooping on the table involved.

Once we hung up, I caressed the television while M made sure the one downstairs was working, and as soon as the glow of that victory wore off, I remembered that I hated, but HATED the new television stand I had just bought. So M suggested we MacGyver our old cherry armoir. He removed the top, and suddenly, magically, with a hallelujah chorus behind it and a golden glow all around it, stood the most beautiful TV stand I'd ever seen. "Yes!" I shouted. "Yes! That's the TV stand I've been looking for!"

My victory was hard-won, because all the moving and shuffling and lifting and puffing did a number on my back, and  the next day I couldn't walk. Good thing I had ol' Flat Screen to entertain me while I lay on the couch - flat on my crippled back.