It’s bee an anxious few days at Castle Sidewalker. We don’t have many luxuries here but I would count the TV remote control as one of them. It even has it’s own name ‘Frank’, after Frank Zappa (tenuous I know, but it’s what I have grown up with!). Anyway, sometime during the Jets win over the Bengals on Sunday Frank took his leave of us, and has not been seen since. This has caused much furniture to be moved all to no avail. This would not have been a problem 60 years ago, with one channel, TV was binary it was either on or off. This would not have been a problem 35 years ago, as the remote control (if you were lucky enough to have a TV) was generally the youngest member of the family that could walk, and whose fingers were dexterous enough to tune into the new channel . This would not have been a problem 30 years ago when the first remote controls were actually attached to the TV by a wire (This version always got it’s man. If you haven’t tripped over this wire carrying a scorching hot drink, you haven’t lived). It wasn’t until the carrot of 0% finance for elaborate entertainment systems, requiring multiple remotes with more processing power than the lunar module, that the loss of a remote really became an issue some 15 years ago.
So the last few days has seen Mrs Sidewalker’s workload increase, as she has had to do the round trip from the sofa to the cable box every time we wanted to change the channels. It’s amazing what compelling viewing the commercials become in a remote-less world! I did some research online to see how much a replacement Zappa would cost, and yes it would have depleted the Sidewalker Fund for the nth time since inception! So before rushing in to buy the replacement I’ve just been outside doing the recycling, and what do you know I found old Frank at the bottom of the paper recycling bin. This had Little Miss Sidewalker’s paw prints all over it. On returning triumphantly to the nest with Frank in hand Sidewalker Jr. was cracking up as he said, “My sister is so funny.” I replied, “I fail to see the humor there Jr.” To which he replied, “She put it in the wrong bin, it should have been in with the plastic and glass”, at which point all four of us burst out laughing.
The moral of the story? Frank Zappa can actually bring families together…
-Luke Sidewalker
-Current Balance $26.17
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, I found it funny. LOL.
I hate when we lost the remote! Poor Mrs Sidewalker. Mr Sidewalker needs to buy her some thank you flowers. Or jewellery, jewellery would be prefered I’m sure
Seriously? This is totally hilarious! All the time I was reading I thought Frank was in the fridge next to the beer. Ha!
Totally made me snort! Glad I wasn’t drinking my coffee, toherwise I’d have had to clean off the monitors.
Viejatwit,
The beer is in the lower dungeon at Castle Sidewalker, well off bounds to the minors of the Castle!
-Luke Sidewalker
It didn’t occur to me that the innocent child had hidden Frank. I thought it was so like something I would do back in the football-beer- TV day that you, Mr. Sidewalker, had mistakenly pulled out a bottle and put Frank inside.