The Electronic Twilight Zone

We lovingly dubbed my mother’s house “The Electronic Twilight Zone”.

Let me preface this story: My mother was very cool. Very hip, very up to date. If there was a new product, be it on the grocery store shelves, in fashion or elsewhere she was first in line to try it.

CB radio, she had one. (Why, I don’t know. We lived in the suburbs!)

The first ‘cell phone’? Got it!

(Seriously, this one!)

The thing was, for some strange reason, once the products were installed they became possessed.

She would call Husband and ask him to look at her VCR because it was ‘acting up’.

He would go to her house and sure enough, it was.

So he’d bring it home, plug it in, and like magic it worked flawlessly!

He would even open it up just to make sure (cuz he LIKES to do stuff like that, go figure!) and it was always in perfect working order.

Back he would go and it would work fine……while he was there.

When he left it would ‘act up’ again!

And it wasn’t just the VCR.

When voice activated gadgets came on the market my mother was right there!

They were so new that not all the kinks were worked out, but that didn’t deter my mother.

Nosiree!

She got one of the first voice activated remote controls for TV.

It took her HOURS on the phone with technical support to set it up. (She talked to them so much they were on a first name basis!)

The boys still have fond memories of Grandma ‘talking’ to the remote.

She would pop a tape into the VCR, grab the remote and say into it, “Oh three’ to set the TV to channel three so they could watch a Disney movie.

Nothing.

She would try again, a little louder.

Still nothing.

My mother was a very strong willed individual and no small inanimate object was going to get the best of her!

So she would try again, each time getting louder and louder until she was yelling into the remote!

A normal person would try two or three times tops, and then just push the buttons on the remote.

Not my mother!

The next step was to call her ‘friends’ at technical support and try and work out the problem while the boys would sit impatiently waiting to watch Pinocchio!

A few years ago, Son1 sent me a page ripped out of an old magazine, advertising the voice activated remote my mother had.

On it he had written, ‘OH THREE!!’ in big bold letters and then in the margins he added ‘hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……………good times!’

Other grandchildren have memories of their grandma baking cookies, taking them to see Santa……..

My kids have “OH THREE!!!”

I’m so glad they have fond memories! LOL