Idiocy - a parable II

My brother in law, who watches my son, had to take his own son to the doctors this afternoon. He came by the office to drop little-guy off. I had cleared it with boss-man, so I was able to leave early today.

When we got home, I asked him what he wanted to do: stack blocks, look through a picture book, or maybe ride the rocking horse? His reply was to jump up on the couch and cross his legs. This means that he wants to watch a video. Sadly, we know how to raise couch-potatos.

I slid the Tele-tubbies tape into the VCR, and he squealed with laughter.

Later, after my wife returned home and the tape was over, I ran to the store to pick up a few essentials for dinner.

While dinner was cooking, I turned the television back on and started flipping.

An aside here: is there anything more relaxing than just channel surfing? I know that I drive my wife to hair-pulling, foam spitting insanity, but it just soothes me to flick. flick. flick.

I noticed that the further up I flicked, the worse the static. I tried to go back down to channel 2 and 3, but they were completely blocked.

Indignantly, I decided to call Comcast (the local cable provider). While I was upset at yet another interruption in our service, I tried to be courteous. I explained that our cable appeared to be out of order, and asked if she (the CS rep) had any idea what the problem might be.

"Well, sir, I am not showing a cable outage in your area. However, this is determined by the number of calls that we receive. I will log this, and if more occur we will look further into the situation."

I waited wordlessly.

"Oh. And all of our technicians have gone home for the night, but I can arrange for one to visit tomorrow."

"I think that would be best," I said, not a little perturbed under my friendly demeanor.

After arranging the for the "cable-guy" to arrive, I hung up and decided to do further research. Squeezing my hand behind the entertainment console I jiggled and shimmied the coaxial cable at the wall. Satisfied that it was properly secured, I tried the same thing with the TV connection. And the VCR connection.

All seemed proper, so I went into our bedroom to check the other TV.

To my surprise, the signal was crystal clear. I flicked up and down the channels, just to make sure.

"Crap," I thought. I probably have a bad coax cable. Our entertainment system weighs 300 tons, and I have purposely forgone updating several A/V components just so that I would never have to mess with the wires, weight and mess again.

Heading back to the front room, sudden inspiration struck.

"R," I asked "is the VCR still on?"

And it was.

Sheepishly this time, I called Comcast back to cancel the service call.

"Were you able to fix the problem yourself?" the CS rep asked hopefully.

"Yes. Er, no. Er.. yes. You see, I'm an idiot. I left the VCR on, and, well... you know..."

"Sir, you're not an idiot. You wouldn't believe how many calls we get for exactly this 'problem'."

I bet I would.

The moral of this story? Be kind to your CS representative, even if you know that you're right. Because the odds are even that you aren't.