No Mechanical Minds Here

My children are all mechanically minded. Son can fix anything, literally. Darling Daughter can too, but she might take a different route than Mechanically-minded Son. Don’t know how they got that way. Must have been their dad, cause it sure didn’t come from me, or even from my Mom and Dad.

I am not mechanically minded. My latest inabilities are related to TV reception. Being a rural resident for most of life, I am used to wrangling with TV reception and its idiosyncrasies. And, I was raised when TV channels were free, if you could get the TV aerial aligned just right. Consequently I refuse to pay cable companies for TV reception. Not that any of them venture into rural areas anyway. That leaves me with TV by satellite. Nope. Not going to do it. TV should be free. Those commercials are for bathroom and snack breaks. And those political commercials (Anyone as tired of them as me?) are good times to surf the stations and find out what else is on.

So, if we are to watch TV at my house, an aerial of some sort is required. We had one on the outside once upon a time. But a huge lightning strike took that out of commission. Even then, when trying to tune in a station, one of us had to go outside and twist the pole around while another sat inside yelling instructions on how much to turn it. After lightning strike, I was not in the mood to hoist another TV aerial on pole into the air.

So I went the rabbit-ears method. Now everyone knows that rabbit ears are not the best method to tune into your favorite TV show. Nevertheless, I persisted. And, usually, I can tune into all the free TV stations. But (there’s always a but), it’s amazing what outside forces can ruin your TV reception, especially at my house. First, of course, as is true of any reception, there’s the weather. Lots of rain and low clouds actually help stations arrive better. Storms on the sun, forget it. There will be no TV while storms swirl on the sun. Windy? Wind blows my favorite Oklahoma PBS stations right out of the living room. Loud vehicle passing by on my country road? TV goes into “scrambled” reception until loud vehicle is totally out of range. And, believe it or not, my little Penny, my house dog, took to scratching her fleas right in front of the TV last night, and I swear, it messed up my reception. I had to bathe Penny.

I don’t care if good TV reception is mechanical or not, I decided. I want great TV reception. And that requires rabbit-ears manipulation. And sometimes I think I might be better off with a real rabbit! If good reception is to be realized with rabbit ears, one must be prepared to be strong and athletic. It sometimes also requires numerous body poses. In the past year I have had to hang my rabbit ears from the ceiling, on top a bookcase set in the middle of the living room, on top the lamp next to the TV. Also have to hold rabbit ears in numerous configurations to seek out one TV station from another. That’s when I begin to look like the Statue of Liberty, only I’m holding rabbit ears up in the air. My monument inscription would be different from Ms. Liberty’s. It would read, “Give me your tired, your poor, your best TV reception.”

But for the past two weeks, my TV reception has required another novel positioning of the rabbit ears, which frightens me. It frightens me because I am working on my fourth pair of rabbit ears this year. When rabbit ears have to be placed in crazy places, they sometimes fall down and break. But I’m working with a brand new pair now, so I expect great things. I did not think I would have to hang my rabbit ears upside down. Yes. I said upside down. Don’t know what is going on in the atmosphere, or with Penny’s fleas, but the only way I’m getting good reception is if the rabbit ears are hanging, upside down, off that book case in the middle of the room. How in the world can those two slender pieces of metal grab signals out of the air and direct them to my TV while upside down? Oh, who cares. It works. And I don’t have to pay cable or satellite companies big bucks for TV. Well, I guess I should count the cost of rabbit ears. But I’m not complaining. Just explaining. I love my rabbit ears.