Let’s just get the white electronic elephant out of the room… My husband cannot hook up electronics properly. I am usually the electronics hook up person.
So when we remodeled a year ago, we moved the TV, VCR/DVD player and Wii. I had hooked it up in its previous location and my husband hooked it up in its current location. Everything worked; sort of.
Like many typical American familes, we have a large HD TV. Instead of having to change the TV channel to watch a DVD, if you have it hooked up right, you change the “source” to AV1 or AV2 using the TV remote. It’s a screen dedicated just to the DVD player.
My husband had hooked it up so the DVD player would only play using channel three. It played, but there were lines through the picture; which oddly enough did not bother my husband. If I had hooked it up and there were lines through the picture, it would have bothered him.
The lines through the picture did bother my youngest daughter and we both knew I had the ability to fix it. Last week she pleaded with me to fix it before I left the house for the day.
I knew the cables had to be directly attached to the AV1 port. The Wii was on AV2.
So I did what every wife would do, I got out the instructions. I don’t blame my husband for not reading the instructions, because I think you either understand how to hook up electronics or you don’t. I’m not sure the instructions would have helped him.
What my husband is really good at is buying really expensive cables. I guess he figures expensive cables will solve problems. I hate to know how many sets of unused, really expensive cables we have lying around. I don’t even know what most of them were purchased for and I don’t think he remembers either. When he decides cables must be purchased, I just stay out of his way because he won’t listen to reason. Even expensive cables won’t help unless you have them hooked into the right place.
The last set of expensive cables he bought was for a surround sound he got for free as a reward through work. I was not happy when the surround sound entered our lives. It was not wireless, so the idea of having wires strung around the room did not bode well with me. The whole affair resulted in strung wires with most of them not staying hooked to their speakers (compliments of the cats).
That particular surround sound system was also a five disc DVD player, which makes no sense to me when you can only watch one DVD at a time. So even though the surround sound was working (except for the unhooked applause and bass speakers), he bought some expensive cables to make the 5 disc DVD player work. I was uninterested in helping with that endeavor, so it never got done. When we remodeled and rearranged, the surround sound was downgraded to a sound bar under the TV. But we still own the expensive cables.
It’s not like I’m some kind of genius with electronics. Sometimes luck is as good as anything. But when I pick up the instructions I do know what I’m looking at and I know where to start.
I knew exactly what to do to hook up the DVD player to AV1 after I read the instructions. So with some help from the kids getting the TV off the wall, I switched the very expensive cables around. I did have some sound interference, so I just unplugged and plugged the sound cables into the VCR/DVD player until I had the right combination.
My daughter was elated. She could watch movies on the AV1 source and the lines across the picture were gone. She wanted to taunt her father over the fact that mom fixed the DVD player problem, but I wouldn’t let her. I reminded her that if it was a car her dad could have fixed it with no problem.
But I have to admit, I went around with a particular glow of pride all day. Because for at least as long as my daughter watched her new set of DVDs that day, I was cool. My daughters are teens; I’m not cool very often anymore.
