Press One for English

Recently, Tim's sister got a sound system. It is a DVD/CD player, radio, and speaker system for the TV all rolled into one. And it only takes three remotes to operate it. Ahh. Progress.

A few weeks ago, Tim and I went over to try and help her hook it up (well, Tim went over to hook it up, I just went along to heckle him...it's my job).

He got it out of the box, and even managed to follow the seemingly idiot-proof picture directions for hooking it up. It wasn't until he turned it on that the trouble began.

Oh, it started out user-friendly enough, encouraging Tim to choose which language he preferred, number one for English, numero dos for espanol. He pressed one for English.

A woman's voice flowed out from the speaker welcoming him, and assuring him that she would guide him through the start-up process.

And then she switched to Spanish.

Perplexed, Tim pushed the buttons to stop, then exit, then restart. And got Spanish again.

He hit some more buttons. And got Spanish again. Caramba!

He said some not very nice words, but surprisingly they had no effect on the senorita and she continued to hable en espanol.

I believe that it was at this point that the dog decided to enter the fray. Somehow, he thought that jumping up and french kissing Tim repeatedly would make everything better. It didn't (some people are just determined to be foul for no reason whatsoever).

Concern for Tim's pressure, her dog and her TV (although not necessarily in that order), prompted Rose to insist that she didn't need the system hooked up that day, but Tim was not giving up yet.

He re-read the directions, fiddled with the connections, the buttons, the knobs and the remotes. Nada.

I heckled (it was my job, after all), the dog barked, Rose soothed, and Tim cursed (some of it in Spanish--the extent of his Spanish language skills-- so the machine could understand). Still nada.

Eventually, dinnertime approached and Tim had to admit temporary defeat. He turned off the system, unplugged it, and with a muttered, "hasta la vista" and final black look, left the apartment.

This past weekend, we finally returned, but brought our twenty-two year old nephew with us. As Tim explained the problem, our nephew nodded once, walked over to the machine, switched one of the cables around and "Termine" Done. No problemo.

So now Rose can listen to her TV programs as though she is a member of the studio audience...if only she could remember how to work the three remotes.