Life Lesson: Learned!
I thought I would share a nugget of wisdom I learned today. If your television breaks, don’t repair it. Instead, buy a new one. You should read this, even if you’re a hippie.
I know it’s been a while since I threw up a real post. I usually put random stuff up that nobody really pays attention to. I can’t ignore this one though.
A few months back my tv started doing something really odd. I loved watching MASH in the afternoon so I would turn to channel 61.1 or whatever it is (I don’t have cable). After about 5 minutes, the station would change on its own. Confused, I would pick up the remote and change the channel back. This went on until one day the remote stop functioning.
I read online that this is a classic example of your remote receiver going bad. Fine. I took my tv apart and removed the circuit board containing the part. I called around to some repair shops in town and decided to pay them a visit to see how much this might cost.
How much can it cost? $5? $10? I can’t imagine it costing any more than that. I walked into the shop and I was greeted by an asian version of Mr. Magoo.
I asked him if he knew the part I read about. He said, “yes.”
I asked if he could sell me the part. He said, “no.”
I asked if they could just remove the existing part and solder a new one on. He said, “it is vely vely lale that they go bad and we cannot gualantee work, so no.”
He added to this by saying that he has had a lot of unsatisfied customers when they can’t guarantee the work. I said that I’d sign a waiver.
I kept trying to meet this guy half way but he wouldn’t compromise. I finally gave up and asked what I could do so my television could change stations again without having to get my fat, lazy American ass up.
He told me to bring my whole television in and they would look at it while I wait. I tried making the above suggestions in many different ways but Mr. Magoo always said no. In the end, I’m probably just going to deal with it until I buy a new tv.
So the moral of the story? Tv repair shops are a scam. They can’t make that much money so they’re always looking to screw you. I knew what was wrong with the tv, I just wanted them to change a part out. They wouldn’t. It’s like they have secret things going on in the backroom that they think you don’t know about.
I KNOW WHAT GOES ON BACK THERE MAGOO!
Comments
“lale”? Hahahaha, really?!
I recall a ripoff feeling that last time I visited a TV repair store. They wanted far too much money for a simple adapter to attach to the back of the cable input, so if the wire was tripped over, it wouldn’t snap off. The extra adapter piece would simply be pulled off. What a joke.
One day our old TV wouldn’t turn on. So we said “oh well” and bought a new one.
It’s not a very funny story.
Also, racist.
TV repair, have you been watching Sally Struthers commercials?
Whenever I had a broken TV or monitor I couldn’t fix, I got at least a little satisfaction by throwing it off a high structure of some sort.
Oh ho ho! Non-native speakers of my language do not have a mastery of the alveolar lateral flap! Oh ho ho!
I can only imagine the sort of phonological errors I would make when speaking theirs… but I do not find the idea of my own potential for fricative mistakes nearly as humorous.
John is a pawn of the TV-Industrial complex. You can’t always just buy new when the old one breaks…
In other news… TV has decimal points now???