Demented TV

Our TV, a Sanyo that has followed us around since 1995, had a serious fit the other day. A few minutes of electronic dementia, you could call it. Under the machine’s “setting” functions, there’s a choice between “cable” and “air,” and it’s always been on air, meaning that it’s attached to an antenna, the way God intended Man to receive Television (look it up, it’s in Leviticus somewhere).

We were watching one of our Popeye DVDs—which Ann calls a DVDV; I like that extra letter—when without warning and without anyone pushing any buttons, the TV switched to the “cable” mode and started searching automatically for channels. Since we’re not hooked up to cable, there were no channels for it to find, so it was stuck in a kind of infinite loop, switching from snowy channel to snowy channel as fast as it could.

Moreover, it didn’t respond well to my efforts to switch it back to “air.” There’s a certain way to do that, and I was certain I was doing it, but the TV would respond unpredictably, sometimes doing what I wanted, other times doing something completely from left field, such as changing the “tint” setting. (Who uses the tint setting anyway?). At times like this, the most awful thoughts go through your mind: I’m going to have to buy a new TV.

Then, as suddenly as it happened, it stopped. Popeye was back on the blank Channel 3, and the “air” setting was in force again. It seemed longer, but this weird electric fit must have lasted all of two minutes (Ann’s comment: “Daddy, I’m scared.”). I was perturbed. What could this mean?

I’ve come up with a few ideas to explain this incident.

1. Sunspots. When in doubt about electronic mischief, sunspots are surely to blame.

2. Demonic possession. TV and cable especially being tools of the Devil, it seems to follow that itinerant evil spirits sometimes infest a TV. When this one discovered that we don’t have cable, it gave up to look for a set that does.

3. Poltergeist. Maybe this house is haunted after all. But perhaps a lazy ghost, which would account for us never hearing from him (her, it?) before. Finally pestered into fulfilling his quota of ghostly deeds, he decided to muck around with the TV.