This scene opens, as so many of my scenes seem to, with all of us sitting around the TV. Except this time, there is one character missing. A main character. The character who knows how to actually use the TV.
It's time for Bones to come on. I've settled Elliott into bed and am coming down the stairs when I see my dad shaking the remote emphatically at the TV. Pressing random buttons. No, just kidding, he totally knows what he’s doing, it’s the TV’s fault. Nothing appears to be happening. But we all keep staring at the TV, just in case.
“Oh here, let me do it,” I say helpfully, in a tone that probably sounds patronizing but is actually, as I have already stated, helpful. Perhaps I am also rolling my eyes playfully and not at all in a Miss Smarty Pants way.
I push the power button. I push the cable button. I stand in front of the TV and give my parents a lecture on the difference between the cable remote and the TV remote, before dramatically pressing the power button and stepping out of the way to demonstrate…
Well. Let’s just say it was anti-climactic.
When the shiny, black screen fails to spring to life (there is sound but no picture), I shake the remote emphatically at the TV and press random buttons. Clearly, this is the TV’s fault, because nothing appears to be happening.
I turn the TV on. Off. On. Off. Nothing but the start-up whine, and the sudden stop.
Mom shifts her weight. She mutters something about whether I “have to keep doing that.” I can feel her purse her lips and exude misery about missing the one show she had been waiting to see all week.
Dad mutters about how he only pressed the one button.
I mutter about how I never had this problem before my parents started messing with the TV.
Long minutes pass, and I am at last defeated. I weakly ask if they want to just listen to the TV. Mom sighs and pulls the laptop out. I wander off to play on Facebook. I mean, read the Bible. Dad leans his head into the back off the couch and snores on cue.
This morning, I wake up to find a note on the entertainment center, explaining the difference between the cable remote and the TV remote. Except in this case, someone actually knew what he was talking about. In addition to the written instructions, Michael had heroically set the TV so that my parents just had to press one button, and the morning news was ready and waiting for them.
The saga could at last draw to a peaceful close.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
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