The Misunderstood Remote

The Story (story version): Once upon a time, there was a universal remote named Phil charged with giving direction to the lives of a TV (Em), a DVD player (Sheba), and a VCR (Merson). The remote did its job so well that even when its owner could no longer care for it, it was sent along with the other appliances to a new family. There was another remote that went with the appliances as well, a remote with more buttons, but one only capable of controlling a single machine, the DVD player (that remote was called Toe). The family who inherited the devices was thrilled with the collection, although they largely ignored Phil at first. Who could blame them? It had been years since they'd had remotes at all, let alone the stuff the remotes were supposed to control.

Eventually, though, Dad in the new family discovered that while Toe was great for telling Sheba what to do, with Phil he could not only command Sheba, but also control Em, too, and even Merson, all without leaving the comfort of Blue, the couch. And so began a golden age for Phil, when once again he was truly appreciated for his talents.

The Mom of the new family, however, did not fully appreciate Phil. She used him occasionally, but usually grumbled things about how lazy the rest of the family was for not getting up to push Em, Sheba, and Merson's buttons. Mom did appreciate Toe, however, and tried to take good care of him. One day Phil stopped working, and so Mom did the most insensitive thing of all: she took away Phil's batteries and gave him to the kids to play with.

Phil suffered in silence for countless days. Dad missed Phil and suggested getting new batteries for him, but it seemed that Phil was beyond repair. He finally drifted down to the basement, no longer interesting even to young master Spencer, the younger son of the family, aged 1. Oh, to be reduced to such a state of wo! But then . . .

In her efforts to protect Toe, Mom brought Phil back out the basement. Just to be fair, she once again tried giving Phil new batteries. Phil's red light blinked when Mom pushed buttons, but neither Em, Sheba, nor Merson responded to any of Mom's commands. She sighed, tossed Phil aside, and went back to pushing buttons by hand. Then young master Spencer found Phil, and decided to play with him again. No one realized there was a problem until it was clear that Em and Sheba were no longer on speaking terms. Mom and Dad tried in vain to make peace between the two machines, using Toe and the machines' own buttons to no avail. Mom even tried to use Phil, but nothing Mom or Dad could do could get Em and Sheba communicating again. The only one who seemed at all benefited by this turn of events was Merson, who could communicate with Em without any help from either Phil or Toe. Finally, Mom decided to ask a friend for help. Mom's friend then brought over another remote, Victor . . . and a big instruction manual to go with him.

It turned out that Victor could only help if Mom taught him how to talk to Em (or any of the other machines). Em only needed one small command to make up with Sheba, but it would take a remote to issue the command. After much reading of Victor's manual and much googling for codes for Em, Mom began the long task of educating Victor. Finally, Mom succeeded and Victor reunited Em and Sheba. Mom then returned Victor to his original owner so that he could not accidentally be used for evil by any of the children of the family.

Mom was still puzzled, though, about how Em and Sheba had gotten in a fight to begin with. She knew from her efforts to get them back together that the trouble hadn't arisen either from Toe or from Em or Sheba's own buttons. Phil was dead, so he couldn't have caused the problem . . . or could he? And then Mom realized the truth: Phil was NOT dead! Phil was very much alive! And he had been brainwashed by young master Spencer (or perhaps young master Michael . . . or both . . .)! At last, Mom finally understood Phil and began to fully appreciate him.

Mom decided that the best way to show Phil how sorry she was for mistreating him in the past was to rehabilitate him. This time she used her googling skills for Phil's benefit and began the careful task of retraining him to communicate with Em, Sheba, and Merson, just as he had before. She rejoiced when she succeeded and vowed that Phil should never again be neglected. She gave him a place of honor hidden away from young masters Michael and Spencer and also charged mistress Susan to help her in her quest to protect Phil, just as she already helped to protect Toe. Dad, of course, was also glad to hear of Phil's return. And so, they all lived happily ever after. :)

Plain talk explanation: Our TV and DVD player mysteriously stopped talking to each other after a toddler played with our not-so-dead universal remote. We finally figured out that the problem was definitely remote related and realized that the remote was indeed still functional, albeit deprogrammed. And so it came to pass that we now understand the previously misunderstood remote. And Mom (the author) is feeling very tech-savvy for having done all the remote control programming. :)