The Idiot Box

We have been TV free for the past three (or is it four?) days. I blame ‘progress’. Even before the analogue free to air TV channels were phased out or switched off depending on who you ask, the digital TV reception was crap… at best! We didn’t get two channels and a third was constantly flickering and teasing us when ever we tried to watch sporting events, delusional that this time we had a chance at actually seeing the thing.

Last week the TV started to flicker and then freeze and then lose all signal for the day. THAT is really bloody annoying. But it would come good again and all would be forgiven. That was last week. This week we have ZERO signal. My Beloved, Little Miss and Mr Cheeky were the most effected by the sudden switch off of moving pictures transforming them from functioning humans to deaf and not, at times, to far from drooling zombies.

The rest of  us managed OK. During the day light hours, for me however the real torture happened at night. After I had the kids in bed and done what ever it was I had to do…. Why?  I sleep with the TV on, turned down almost inaudible but it MUST be on. This terrible habit first started when we lived on the other side of Australia. We shared a house with my parents and brothers whilst we were on our ‘working holiday’ though really it was a working holiday for all the adults except me I was the housekeeper. If that makes you think it wasn’t all roses and sunshine then you must not realise that the pay off for that was free baby sitting.

When ever I wanted or needed it. Up until then I had on maybe four occasions done something child free. I also had not had My Beloved home every night or every five nights for many years. ( I was used to doing everything and not getting a break from the kids. It was fine by me too. I am not complaining. It has its benefits and the main one was total TV programme control after bedtime and truth be told before bedtime to if I wanted to).

The only downside for me was our bedroom had a TV and after everyone toddled off to bed each night My beloved would watch a movie and I would have trouble going to sleep. Eventually I had no trouble and that is when the real trouble began! Fast forward 2 years and if anyone so much as dared to turn the TV off in the middle of the night on their way back to bed after getting a drink or midnight snack i would wake up shortly after with a fright. It didn’t seem ‘right’ as I was so used to the TV droning away in the background it’s silence would be quite literally deafening.

So this week I am sure you are starting to imagine was rather difficult on me. The first night I lay in bed for three hours staring at the ceiling unable to sleep. I think my body clock was set at ‘bedtime  is when the TV goes on’ and not at a normal ‘when you are tired’ pattern. the second night I had extra teens sleeping over and they kept me up til two. Well not really, but because I had no drone of the TV I got to listen to their chatter and most of it was either completely inane rubbish with words like Yolo and OMG spoken as a word!!!  ohemgeee ( Is that even normal?) Or just utter tripe. The amount of time I heard ‘Cool story bro’  or ‘Do it again and see what happens’ astounds me. Surely you only need say that once, then the next time show them what happens? Anyway I digress.


I finally fell asleep an hour before My Beloved arrived home from his night shift driving taxis and  when I  was woken an hour after that I was harassed for ABC 4 kids by Mr Cheeky I had to suffer what is best described as ‘kid show’ withdrawals. It sucked. For us both! Eventually My Beloved woke up and he tried everything to fix the problem. He even bought new connections, a set top box and a Blu-ray player ( I do not really know why) it was second hand and did not have a remote, which explains it 20 dollar price tag but not, My Beloved’s difficulty in not understanding why we couldn’t watch anything on it (besides the fact we own 1 Blu-ray disc and probably a  million DVDs.) it turns out the Blu-ray movie he brought gave you the option to chose the language it played in and the machine was very sure that pressing play is not the same as pressing ok!

The fact our DVD Player has been playing up (after years of hard work) sent My Beloved in to a ‘I will fix this if it kills me’ frenzy and before long he was on the roof fiddling with the aerial and booster box attached to it. He even climbed up a tree and cut branches down (that was a positive as the leaves were really clogging our guttering) and still no signal. Then for a very short moment in time we had 93% signal and things were looking up. Then nothing.  I didn’t get to witness that as I had taxi duty with my bigger kids that afternoon. My Beloved cracked it and said ‘That’s it no TV! I give up.’

‘The problem in in the wiring in the wall.’ I said when I got home.
‘What? It can’t be! It is the aerial, it has to be.’ he said looking out the door at the aerial above. ‘Stupid bloody digital TV'.’ he muttered
‘It is in the wall.’ I said. ‘Trust me, you have replaced everything else!’
‘It can’t be!’ he said ‘Nothing can get into it to do anything to it.’

No I thought, but that rough tug I gave the connections the night the signal was lost probably has a lot to do with it.


‘It is definitely in the wall.’

 

I said. ‘Trust me, I know. Call the aerial man.’ It must have been how I said it or the look on my face because he stopped and looked at me and said.
‘WHAT DID YOU DO?’
‘I MAY have bumped it, a little too enthusiastically.’
‘Well you could have told me that!’
‘I didn’t get a chance!’ I said.

And I didn’t… honest.