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Here are a few clues: It doesn't involve a hurricane, earthquake, avalanche of other act of nature gone bad. It doesn't have
anything to do with political upheavals, coups, dictators being ousted or governments being overthrown, although to watch them, you'd think it did. And it doesn't involve a medical emergency, loss of blood or
amputation.
Give up? Want a hint? How about this one: Hut one, hut two, hut three! Or this one – Sammy Sosa swings and connects with the ball! It's
out of there! Or how about this? Dale Junior's back in the race!
No, we weren't invaded by sports figures. And we didn't gain control of ESPN. What we had was a disaster of the sports kind: our cable
died. On a weekend. And a sports weekend at that.
He would have preferred a small revolution, I'm sure. But it wasn't – instead, it was a screen full of snow that visited us simply
because my husband "fiddled" with the TV.
"Fiddled" is the term I use. He doesn't. He uses any of the following : Adjusted, fixed, looked at, barely touched and, my personal
favorite, did absolutely nothing to the thing. And voila! Quicker than Tiger Woods can shrug into a green sports jacket, we had television reception that only residents of Siberia could relate to.
He didn't take this well. In fact, he did a whole lot of mumbling under his breath and running around to check the reception in various
rooms. I was eating my lunch and watching an old "Columbo" tape at my desk when he rushed in and heaved a sigh of relief.
"Thank God," he said. "Your television is still working!"
I'm sure he thought he was going to plant himself four inches away from where I work and spend the bulk of the afternoon playing remote
control roulette. I lost no time bursting that bubble.
"Tape," I said through a mouth full of turkey. "I taped it to watch later."
It's hard seeing a grown man cry.
But he's nothing if not resourceful. He recruited Mike, who also being a man, immediately understood the gravity of a weekend without
televised sports. And the two of them tag-teamed from room to room, checking all the televisions, looking at the little black cable and exclaiming over the lack of a clear picture as though this one simple event was
enough to drive them into a hotel room (preferably one with cable).
Then they drove to Radio Shack to buy a gizmo that might resolve the reception problem. They had to hurry or the store would have closed
on them and – gasp – my husband would have to spend several hours going cold turkey. And, as it turns out, that's how it turned out. No sports in our sad little household that night – an event now and forevermore
etched into family chronicles as The Night of the Long Conversation.
The next day I called the cable company myself.
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