Hooking Into a Converter

It seemed easy enough when Eddie explained it at the shop.

“All you do,” he said, “is connect the converter box to your VCR and the VCR to the TV set.” He repeated it slowly: “The box to the VCR, the VCR to the TV.”

Eddie gave it a kind of lilting cadence as though at any moment he might break into song, the way they did in the old MGM musicals.

He studied my eyes for a few seconds in a searching effort to determine if I knew what he was saying. Then he said, “That doesn’t seem so difficult now does it?”

Eddie was perceptive. He seemed to understand instinctively that if I squinted or if my gaze took on a slightly myopic look I had missed everything.

“No,” I said. “The box to the VCR and the VCR to the TV.”

“Right,” Eddie said. “‘Now go home and give it what-for.”

Eddie worked for Falcon Cable TV, the company that allows us to view television in the Santa Monica Mountains. Recently, Falcon instituted a new, improved system that not only allows us to watch essentially the same number of channels but also allows us to pay almost twice as much for the service.

And it loaned me converter boxes.

“What do they do?” my wife asked when I brought the boxes home.

“They convert,” I said. “It has something to do with free-flowing ions, I think.”

“And you have to connect them? I’m getting out of here.”

“It’s easy. The box to the VCR and the VCR to the TV.”

“Which one do you plug into the wall?” she asked. “There are three cords. One from the box, one from the VCR and one from the TV.”

“I don’t remember Eddie telling me about that. But he did give me a diagram and some easy-to-follow written instructions.”

I read from the easy-to-follow instructions: “Cable from wall to converter ‘input’ then converter ‘output’ to ‘cable in’ or ‘antenna in’--then ‘antenna out’ or ‘cable out’ or ‘to TV’ to TV set.”

“It doesn’t say which electrical cord you plug into the wall,” she said.

“There’s a picture,” I said irritably. “You plug the TV into the converter box and you plug the converter box and the VCR into the wall. There’s a little drawing of a wall socket and an arrow. Nothing to it.”

“That’s what you said when you fixed the toilet but we still have to jiggle the handle.”

“It’s a faulty toilet.”

“It’s a faulty toilet fixer.”

I labored for two hours trying to hook into the system. Cable from wall to box input. Cable from box output to VCR input. Cable from VCR output to TV antenna input (VHF). It should have worked. It didn’t.

“So,” my wife said.

She has a way of using that one word with just the right tilt to encompass a plethora of attitudes and emotions. She says “so,” but what she’s thinking is, “it’s the old jiggle-the-toilet-handle routine all over again.”

“It appeared to start to work once,” I said.

“Well, then, that ought to hold us for the rest of the season. Do we jiggle the handle?”

The next morning I called Falcon Cable. Our monthly charge had gone up while our system had been complicated beyond belief. Falcon owed me hook-up help.

“I’m sorry, Elmer,” the lady who answered the phone said, “but there’s no one here. I’ll take your number.”

I tend to mumble at times of stress. She thought I had said my name was Elmer Teenez. No one called back.

“That’s because they checked their records and they have no Elmer Teenez as a customer,” my wife said. “I’ve never met anyone else who couldn’t say their own name. Let’s try it together. Al (pause) Mar-teen-ez. “

Eddie had made the off-hand comment that if I needed help, just call. So I called.

“Well,” he said, “it’s really easy to do, but I guess I can come out after work.” There was pain in his voice.

“I’d really appreciate it,” I said.

Eddie is one of those nice guys who can’t say no. Guys like me who whine to get our way count on that.

“You have no pride,” my wife said when I hung up.

“Pride goeth before the fall,” I said. “Or something like that.”

It took Eddie mere seconds to make everything work. “See,” he said, hands flying over the tangle of cords and plugs, “it’s a snap.”

“You did exactly what I did,” I said. “Why didn’t it work for me?”

As I sit here writing I can hear the TV set working in another room. I can also hear the toilet running. Excuse me while I go jiggle the handle.