Day of the Remote Control

My dad has a DVD player and a VCR attached to the television in the living room. He has another television in the kitchen and another television in the bathroom. Each one of  these devices has a remote control. When he loses one, he often buys a "universal remote" controller and uses that instead. Today we attempted to use the DVD player. An two hours later he's a very frustrated 90 year old, and I have a pulled neck muscle, and the DVD player still won't work.

First we had to find the remote control that went to the DVD player. That necessitated a search and identify mission through the seat cushions of the easy chair, the couch, removal of several years worth of magazines, books and papers, with no remote being found. I did, however, find a .38 pistol in a plastic bag he keeps in the easy chair when it fell out and hit my foot. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The first twenty minutes were spent trying to explain to him that the DVD player had to have it's own remote control (no, the Universal remotes won't work - they don't have an open/close button for the tray). After I got that, the next fifteen minutes were spent figuring out the wiring between the auxiliary inputs and the Video input on the television and which remote worked with the VCR, and which input enabled it on the television. Then I had to explain that the VCR remote control won't work with the other devices, and the universal remote control won't work with the DVD player (see, it has an open/close function for the tray, which won't open with a button on the front of the DVD player, so I surmised it must have a dedicated remote control somewhere).

I knew this would happen one day and I have been dreading it. But it was a Clint Eastwood movie, so I figured what the hell. Clint Eastwood, man. Maybe I could get things going with a minimum of confusion.

Meanwhile, my father has collected every remote control in the house and has started going through them from device to device. No, that won't work. No, that doesn't work. Nope, not that one. Yup, that's the one for the kitchen.

In a moment of Einsteinien inspiration, I opened the cabinet next to the television. There was a remote control. It was the same brand as the DVD player. Ah, I thought. Success.

No button seemed to work anything on the DVD player. I removed the batteries and began to look for batteries in the drawers. I found them. About twenty. All in various states, all by different makers, so I removed the old batteries, noting their condition and maker, and noticed the corrosion filling the battery compartment. Ok, well I scraped off the terminals, selected the best looking candidates from all the AAA batteries I found, and started plugging them in, trying the remote, twisting, turning, etc.

Meanwhile, my father was busy with the pod of remote controls he had in his lap, pointing them at the television and changing channels, turning it off and on, changing functions to the VCR (no dad, that's not it, see the light on the DVR? We need the DVD light to go on and off.). During this process he managed to deprogram the television so it would not connect to cable. I know mare about the television remote control and cable setup now than I ever wanted to know. So, after I got the cable hooked up, programmed, and running normally again he made the comment that "sometimes the tv goes out by itself then comes back in a few hours or days. That's ok...."

So after a while messing around with the drawer full of batteries and playing with the DVD remote control I determined that I still might be using bad batteries. So, I took one remote control that worked and removed the batteries from it and swapped them with the ones in the DVD remote control. Still nothing.

Meanwhile, my dad has picked up the remote control w/o batteries and has been trying it on different televisions. His cussing alerted me to the fact he had put "new" batteries from the drawer into the remote control that had no batteries.

This is the point where I think I pulled my neck muscle.

So, holding the known good batteries, I have determined that the DVD remote control either doesn't work any more or the thing is broken. I explained this to my father while I set up the cable programming again on the television. Then I helped him to identify the remote control for the television in the living room and the universal that worked on it, and I put the batteries back into the remote control for the kitchen television. But I had mentioned the funky batteries, and my dad went and found a battery tester that looked like it was pulled of a classic model Buick car, and began testing batteries as he removed them from remote controls.

I explained again that we weren't going to be able to use the DVD player because it had only one remote control, with the manufacturer logo (A-Star), and it didn't work so don't bother with that one. Sensing increasing levels of his frustration, I decided then to return to my "cell" and find something to do while he tested batteries. An hour later he had finished and identified the working remotes for the various televisions and had them properly placed. Then he asked me if we could watch the Clint Eastwood movie in the DVD player.

"No, dad, the remote control ... the player ... it's broken. It doesn't work."

"Oh, well, sh*t. I'll have to take that down to the store and buy another remote control."

Then I explained that the universal controller probably wouldn't work, and he shouldn't mess with getting another one. Then I explained why the remote control for the DVD players doesn't work.

Thank God it Saint Patrick's day. Evening is on the way. I'll see my favorite bartender.