Woe is Mrs. Hillbilly
Mom. Her day was not off to a good start this morning. She left early for
school to avoid the Big Rock Truckers she encountered coming home last evening.
Except that those Big Rock Truckers don’t start work at 8:00 like teachers or
at 7:00 like normal laborers…but apparently at 6:00 like crazy Big Rock
Truckers. So…she was driving behind a flatbed full of stones from Mansion to
mailbox. Which is still better than driving IN FRONT of of one, what with their
questionable brakes.
Getting to school a
useless 45 minutes before first bell, Mrs. HM decided to go ahead and prep for
her lesson forthwith, rather than waiting until 15 minutes before the bell as
usual. Good thing Mrs. HM is an overachiever.
Look what happened.
Okay. It didn’t just
happen. Mrs. HM had a hand in it. Two hands, to be literal, and the end of her
nose to boot.
I have a lesson that I
use every year that requires a videotape made from TV long ago. So long ago
that my mom recorded it for me. It has to do with the moon landings. For years,
I searched for this program on DVD or video to no avail. I looked on YouTube.
Nothing. So my faithful tape played four times a day, once a year. I daresay
that tape is at least 10 years old now. Maybe 15. Older than my students!
Tapey has grown
crotchety in his old age. He growls. He hiccups. He blanks out. But he is still
informative. Until today. “Please, please, let’s get four more showings out of
this old guy,” Mrs. HM muttered to herself as she slipped Tapey into DA-4HEAD,
the Emerson VCR that Mrs. HM has tended like a precious hothouse flower all these years.
I put on my projector.
Turned on DA-4HEAD. And nothing happened. Oops! Better switch the plugs on the
back of the control center from DVD to VCR. There. Play again. Nothing. Hit
eject to release Tapey. The door opened but he wouldn’t come out. I tugged. I
pulled. I yanked. Nothing.
Off to the cabinet for
my surgical instruments. A triple Phillipsectomy later, the top was off
DA-4HEAD, and I could twist Tapey’s entrails loose from the sharp guts.
The operation was a success. I played that tape for 2nd hour. Then I rewound it. Of course it would not work during 3rd hour. BUT...I had left the patient exposed on the operating table. AND I had a visiting specialist to help me. We gave it a good go, but I am sorry to report that while the patient survived, the parasite died.
Lucky thing Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is a quick thinker. She turned off the project to protect classified information from 32 prying eyes, and found that moon video NOW ON YOUTUBE! Heh, heh. YouTube is no longer blocked from the faculty.
Problem solved. Allow me to introduce my new BFF, YouTube. Sorry Google.
It's not me. It's you.
2 comments:
What is this videotape stuff you speak of?
And that machine... I've never seen anything like it. It must be some relic from 50 or 60 years ago... WAY before my time.
Maybe you should take that pile of wires and metal to Antiques Roadshow. You'd get a huge valuation tacked onto that thing.
Sioux,
What? Are you insinuating that my cousin was not happy to get a treasure such as this that we left in Mom's house? With a fat TV hooked up to it?
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