My Story of the Cable Guys

The Cable Guys – Part One…

Yesterday, I turned on the tv to play the recording of an American show called Sunday Morning.

It appeared that sometime during the night, a blurry frame of a man standing up had frozen in place.  This happens a lot, so I tried changing the channel.  A cable box way of hitting a reset button.

When this didn’t work, I powered off the cable box by walking across the room and flipping the switch on the surge bar.  I waited.  This is another way of doing a cable box reset.

On power up, the man was gone.  Everything was gone.  The red light on the front that indicates the power is coming in but the cable box has been turned off was dark.  I tried the remote.

Then, I walked across the room, again.  No need to use a treadmill, I was getting a lot of walking in.  I did the whole switch flipping thing again.  Because of the way I have the power bar this turns off everything including my toothbrush charger.

Nothing.

Cable Guys – Part Two..

Yesterday was Sunday.  A Holiday Sunday.  It never occurred to me that the contracted Cable Guys who fix things would be working.

I sat at my laptop and watched some NetFlix, Amazon Prime and some Hulu.  I could have plugged the laptop into the tv and watched from my usual chair, but that would mean I’d have to cross the room again, with a laptop tucked under my arm with only one cane.  It would have been a lurch fest.

About 2PM I had a bright idea.

I’d call the cable company and ask about sending someone with a cable box to switch out, tomorrow.  After all, it was Sunday and a Holliday Sunday, even.

The tech who said he was Scott asked a few questions.  Had I turned it off?  Could I turn it back on?  Did I unplug it?  What was it doing when I unplugged it?

Scott said I should look for a square thing on the cord between the plug and the box.

That was the first indication that I was in trouble.

“Scott, there is just a power cord running from the box to the wall and another cord running a cable into the cable box.”

He insisted.  I called my darling husband to talk to this guy on speaker to assure him there is no gadget between the box and the plug in.

I took the phone off speaker and Scott said he’d send someone between 3PM and 5PM.  “Isn’t it Sunday?”  He assured me he was sending a cable guy.

Cable Guys – Part Three…

We are hard to find, you can’t see us from the street.  To get here you have to turn up the driveway at the black painted mail-box.

My phone rang.

A new cable guy wanted to go through the exact conversation I’d had with Scott.

He was lost for a while.  Then showed up and parked.  He was waiting for another cable guy to assist.

Assist, what?  I wondered.  We just needed a switch out.

And time passed… a second cable truck arrived.

Cable Guys – Part Four…

I am working at the laptop, trying to stay out of the way.  The first guy asked the same questions.  Then disappeared.  The next time I looked up there was a new box there.  A sleek modern box.

The first guy talked to the second guy.  They asked for a short cut to the back yard after asking how many boxes we had in the house.

One guy talked to the other guy who seemed confused about something under the eave of our house.

Then they needed to access the basement.

Pretty soon, power tools came out.

I asked my husband what was up?  He changed out the box, right?  He shrugged.

There were holes drilled through the hardwood floors and wires pulled up and all manner of fussing.

The cable they were putting in was different.  Eventually, about 5:30 PM they started packing up.

The new cable box is sleek, black and the time is impossible to read from here.  But the picture isn’t pixilating and it is not freezing up.

Because this was a cable company issue not something a group of potted up college students had tried beefing up, the cable company is paying and I have no doubt the fellows will be paid well for the Sunday afternoon call out.

It never occurred to me that our cables were so antique they would have to rewire the house just to change out the box.

__

This is the end of my Cable Guys story.

Come back soon and don’t touch anything sharp.