Katy McKenna Raymond  
Personal blog of christian writer Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri

Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri


Katy is represented by
Greg Johnson at
WordServe Literary

Read more Katy at
LateBoomer.net

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A Remote Impossibility

If I lived alone, I would lead a completely remoteless life. I know this about myself.

I'm afraid I'm just like my mother, who for the most part enjoys the benefits of her clicker until, that is, one of her great-grandkids visits and messes with the buttons. Not long ago my brother discovered that Mom had spent the last several months viewing all the programs on her bedroom TV in Spanish.

"Mom, why didn't you say something sooner? I could have easily switched you back to English," he said.

"Well," she said (and maybe she'd just been hearing a lot about illegal immigration or English as a second language or something), "I just thought the whole world had gone to Spanish."

"But, Mom, the TV in your living room is in English."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that."

I just called Kevin into my bedroom to switch my DVD player off so I could watch the weather report on the news. It's a process that involves a precarious combination of at least two remotes (out of the five that languish on various surfaces in my room) and upwards of seven or eight buttons. I don't get why, if I want "TV," I should need to push "SAT" and then "03," which is not the channel I'm interested in. Then, after "03," I think I'm supposed to punch in the channel, but maybe not. Whatever.

I do know that I need to punch "SAT" before punching the channel, and "TV" before controlling the volume. If I screw up on either of these steps, I end up with a snowy, staticky version of channel "03," which is NEVER where I really want to be.

Channel "03" is a middle-aged woman's cruel punishment for attempting to understand stuff like this.

"Kev, just put it on Channel 41 for me, will you?"

"Mom, you need to learn this. Come on, I'll show you again..."

"No, really, Kev. I think we may be directly in the path of a deadly tornado. Please get me to 41 so that we can find out if we should take shelter in our safe spot..."

I must have looked truly pitiful, especially when I used the words "safe spot," because the boy grabbed the remote with disgust as if he were the impatient parent and I the stubborn child.

"Just remember," he said, and even now I'm not sure if it was a promise or a threat, "You won't always have me around."

Hey, that's not fair! He's twenty, and I haven't even used that line on HIM yet!
Posted by Katy on 04/11/05 at 04:52 PM
Fallible Comments...
  1. Katy, I'm wilfully ignorant about the remote. My 18 year old daughter has pulled the same, "Mom, you need to learn this" line on me, and it usually goes in one ear and out the other! I don't know if it's my little form of Luddite rebellion or what, but I don't want to learn about programming anything! :)
    -----
    Posted by Cindy Swanson  on  04/12/05  at  04:57 PM
  2. How this for role reversal...I have to explain to Baillie how to use our four remotes!!! You'd think a gifted, wonderful 15 year old would know how to do that, wouldn't you? She says there are more important things to learn...
    Posted by Bridget  on  04/12/05  at  05:09 PM
  3. Tee, hee, you two! I think a sign of genius in when a kid says, "There are more important things to learn." Not that there aren't plenty of geniuses who can manage a remote!

    Scott, for instance, refused to learn his times tables--on principle. He said it was pointless to memorize something and have it take up space in his brain, when he had the capacity to compute the problem instantly whenever he needed to.

    Have you ever tried arguing with a nine-year-old when he says something like that?

    So, Cindi, we COULD tell our kids that there are WAY more important things we want to learn...Maybe they'll take us for geniuses yet!
    Posted by Katy Raymond  on  04/12/05  at  06:15 PM
  4. Have a remote minded family member get a "universal remote" ...a 17 dollar one at Wal-mart and program a "macro" for you. That's what I do with relatives who I could spend my life explaining the principals behind remote controls to or I could spend time with them.

    Button 1 is for the fancy stuff:
    "Push this button to turn on tv, switch it to video, turn on the dvd, the receiver, switch the receiver to dvd audio, and start the dvd. Hit the button again to turn everything off".

    Button 2 is turns off everything and sets the remote for the TV.

    If they mention button 3...they're too advanced. As soon as I heard "Could we make button 3 do....whatever" I know they're ready to take control of their own remotes :)

    -M
    Posted by Michael Main  on  04/12/05  at  08:01 PM
  5. Hello,
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    and your phone number i mean the condition and the available pics at hand and the last price so that i can proceed on the payment immediately by cashiers check and i look
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    mr john ...........
    Posted by mr john  on  04/19/05  at  04:18 AM
    6. Page 1 of 1 pages
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