Episode 5 – Tele-Troubles

My DH is technically savvy. We have ten telephones (not counting cells) and two dual DVR’s…. a home theater system, media hard drive and motion activated security lights… We have more remote controls than we have dinner plates.

Before moving here, Grandma had difficulty getting messages off of her phone’s built in answering machine (all she needed to do was press PLAY). She frequently had problems with her TV sets and abandoned the VCR and CD player years ago.

Visualize Granny Clampett moving in with George Jetson. It’s been a challenge for them both (technically speaking). Grandma struggles just to get the TV set on and DH has programmed a personal guide for her TVs with only the channels she watches listed. He’s even auto-tuned Wheel of Fortune to come on six nights a week at 6:30 p.m. Recently, Grandma hollered for help … the TV would not come on. DH went to her aid.

DH: What’s the problem?
G: I can’t get this TV to come on….
DH: Well, that’s because you’re trying to use the telephone instead of the TV remote control.
G: Oh.

It’s an honest mistake.

We’ve written on the back of each remote, in Sharpie marker, the room it belongs in (she only has two). Somehow they manage to get switched around (bedroom/living room) or one gets carried upstairs. This leads to more frustration when the errant remote fails to yield expected results. On the occasion when she does have the right remote, she presses the wrong button. DH suggests we place tape over the 3 dozen buttons she should NOT press. He’s been searching the internet for a universal “5 –key” remote. (Power, Channel up/down, Volume up/down). I suggested we make a photocopy of the remote and label the necessary buttons and have it laminated.

Then there is the matter of the telephone. We have caller ID which appears on our television screen when we have an incoming call. Our phone base also announces who is calling (in a little mechanical voice). Grandma has never had the luxury of knowing who is going to be on the other end of the line before she answers. It’s all new to her. We have told her several times that she needn’t answer the phone (when we are away) unless it is from someone she knows, but that is obviously not in her nature. CeCe informs us Grandma has been talking to the “Toll-Free” calls (that we always ignore.) Now with all due respect to the thousands of employees of the countless call centers around the world… the fact is, they have annoyed me so many times over the years, I have no sympathy for the telemarketers now at Grandma’s mercy. I’m sure she does not hang up on them (and instead, perhaps they, on her). CeCe says Grandma even talks to them for “a long time”. (Not a surprise and one of the reasons Grandma has no credit card.)

One day, when checking the telephone company’s voicemail on our telephone, DH discovered Grandma had called our home phone number FROM our home phone (and left messages) three times. We have since removed that number from her personal (paper) phone list.

I write this episode with empathy, for I too have occasional difficulty with our electronic household. My philosophy is: somewhere in the house HAS to be a TV I can find something I want to watch and if I can’t get the sound to work, there’s always closed captioning. Either DH or CeCe is usually around to help me with most things and now they help Grandma too. Yup, we’re all in this together.

So ends Episode 5.