Clicking into the 21st century
My VCR is jealous of my DVD.
So they told me at Panasonic, when I informed them that the picture on my new DVD weaves in and out of focus.
“Your VCR thinks your DVD is stealing,” they explained. “So your VCR is punishing your DVD.”
Which is understandable, I guess, when you’ve had a VCR sharing the same box as your TV for 10 years and then you suddenly bring home a DVD. Basic psychology teaches us to expect issues.
I returned the item to Fry’s in Canoga Park. They understood and I prepared for life without DVD. However, that evening I attempted to eject a tape from my TV/VCR and my request was denied. It occurred to me that my VCR was still upset. Joe the TV repairman took everything apart and spread it all over my bed and eventually saved the tape for Blockbuster, put the TV back together again for $70 and announced that my VCR was dead (of a broken heart?) and advised me to drop the TV off the pier. And to purchase a
modern TV and a separate VCR/DVD. So I did. At Fry’s for $300. Since my back is iffy, I located two gentlemen from the Malibu Labor Exchange to cart the stuff from the trunk of my car to my bedroom for $30. For an extra $10 and the old TV, they unboxed everything and inserted all the wires where they were meant to be.
My young friend, Michael, offered to program the works for me. My thought had been to take notes as an aid to understanding the 21st century. Michael, a whippersnapper, good-naturedly snatched my notebook and pen from my grasp, threw them against my bedroom wall and said, “Don’t be silly, you don’t need to do that, just pay attention and read the manuals and experiment.”
I laughed hysterically; I’m allergic to manuals. Michael left and I sat on the edge of my bed, stifling a whimper and cradling three separate remote control devices, uneasy with the fact that it took me four separate clicks just to get the TV on and four more to get it off. Eight clicks and I’m not close to changing a channel yet, let alone exploring VCR/DVD. Which turned out to be the good news. The bad news was that sometimes I got a picture and sometimes I got sound, never both simultaneously, and occasionally just a pretty blue screen with a “3” on it.
So I called Ken, the neighborhood handyman, who, for the $7 and change I had left in my wallet, figured the batteries were bad in my VCR or DVD or TV remotes, I don’t remember which. So I brought them all down to Eric at Radio Shack, who said the batteries were fine. So I called Charter Communications, which promised to send someone out between 10 a.m. and noon the following day. You know how that goes. Two days later, they sent out Dickie, who assured me for $28.30 that my DVD/VCR combo was faulty. Back to Fry’s, which agreed with Dickie and were cordial about the exchange.
I felt shy about bothering young Michael again, who has a life of his own, so I called Joe the TV repairman, who put Humpty Dumpy together for $75 and a diet root beer.
Everything worked. For a minute. Till that evening when I tried to record “The Sopranos,” which airs during the time I prefer to be sipping a Margo at Casa Escobar. Recording in absentia is my favorite electronic trick – it makes me feel youthful and capable. Forget about it.
So Charter sent Sergio out, who, for another $28.30, informed me that it is impossible to record for the future with a DVD/VCR combo. That one must have two separate entities, a VCR and a DVD, not two in one, to do what my former unit performed in a trice back in the prehistoric ’90s.
Fry’s unsmilingly made the exchange for an additional $46.
Sergio, a beautiful person, sent his boss, Manuel, a born teacher, to my side. “And then … and then … and then …” explained Manuel. I felt my chest flutter with excitement as I took copious notes, and forced a cough to suppress a heart attack and nearly sank to my knees and repeatedly kissed his hand. I shoved $20 into his pocket.
As of today, I am a four-remote family and we’re all clicking along nicely. Except that Sarah at Blockbuster advises me to stop wasting my time, because a new gimmick called TiVo that’s been around for years is definitely the way to go.