Last Saturday night, my mother and I did something most women
never attempt in their lifetime.
We used the TV remote.
I know
– it’s shocking, isn’t it?
Last Saturday night, my mother and I did something most women never attempt in their lifetime.
We used the TV remote.
I know – it’s shocking, isn’t it? We actually sat down in front of the TV, picked the remote up and pressed a button. Of course, there were no men present to see us accomplish this amazing feat – or to grab the remote from our hands and run screaming from the room – but still, we did it.
Well, Mom did anyway. Personally, I’m quite frightened of remote controls. And with good reason. Two buttons after Mom daringly attempted to change the channel, we were greeted with a black screen and the letters DVD.
So Mom did what any mother would do during
a crisis.
She turned to me and screeched, “What does that mean?”
Well, heck if I knew. I mean, sure it looks innocuous, like maybe the TV is waiting for you to put in a DVD and hit PLAY.
But once you mess with a remote, all bets are off. DVD could mean anything. It could mean Da Video Dead. Or Don’t Voo Doo. Or even Don’t Vacuum Dogs.
And no matter what, I wasn’t going to press any buttons. But then Mom screeched again, “I paid for you to go to college – tell me what this means.”
Okay, first of all, Mom didn’t pay.
And second of all, they didn’t have TV Remote 101 when I went to school – of course, it was the dark ages. I mean, we had remotes, but all of them had cords attached and only the very rich and the very lazy could afford them. The rest of us had to schlep across the family room and change the channels ourselves.
It was a very dark time for couch potatoes.
But all that didn’t change the fact that we were alone in the house with a messed up remote. And both of us knew that two things were bound to happen: 1) Dad and Harry would come home and find us there, staring at the black screen and tease us about it until we bounced a big screen off their heads; or 2) Mom would screech again as the panic started to rise within her.
I really didn’t want Mom to screech again. There is something about looking at your mother, the woman who raised you, who made you eat veggies and told you a million times that your butt looked small even when you looked like you were carrying the Hindenburg around on your hips, that makes even a grow-up child want to please her. So I said, “Mom, I think it wants us to watch a DVD.”
Mom just stared. Mom clearly didn’t want to watch a DVD. Or maybe she didn’t know what a DVD was. So I helped again. I said, “Do you have any DVDs?” And Mom didn’t screech. Instead she said very quietly, “Yes, but I want to watch HGTV.”
And then I very gently explained to Mom that this wasn’t about what she wanted. It was about the angry big screen in her living room and what IT was demanding we do. And IT wanted us to watch a DVD.
Mom refused. Oh, it was a polite refusal, said directly to the TV’s screen. But it was becoming apparent that Mom wasn’t going to obey IT and watch a DVD. No, Mom wanted to watch HGTV. And Mom can be very stubborn when she wants something – especially if it has anything to do with HGTV.
So we sat for a while and watched the black screen. And then we did what any women in this situation would have done. We made a nice pot of tea and spent the rest of the evening chatting about paint color.
And the next morning, we didn’t say a word when Dad got up, went into the living room and clicked the remote several times. We didn’t even breathe when he turned the TV off and then back on about 20 times. And we certainly didn’t laugh when Dad finally walked into the kitchen and said, “I feel like watching a DVD. Do we have any new ones?”
