We all know about the benefits of exercise. It’s hard to pick up a magazine without learning about some new unimagined benefit – a body part sure to get bigger or flatter by investing 20 minutes a day.
I never dreamed that instead of fixing me, exercise would introduce me to a whole universe of people who want to fix my stuff.
The discovery came one morning last month when well-intentioned and suited up, I headed downstairs bent on working off those winter doldrums – and maybe a few pounds – on the treadmill and the elliptical.
Exercise without TV is like a day without sunshine, so I switched on the remote, only to find that the available channels had only shopping opportunities and TV preachers.
This unsettling discovery quickly led me to Google, which led me to FixYa.com, a website where for $24 you can “ask an expert NOW” about any appliance you own. Where fixing’s concerned, I’m definitely into NOW. Besides, even at $24, FixYa sounded like an attractive alternative to texting grown children who will take two days to respond, then snicker and tell all their friends that I forgot to push an input button. Or something.
For example, I wished I’d had FixYa the time I left my daughter a Voicemail, desperately trying to figure out how to hear the nightly news in English instead of Chinese. She still plays the message.
I wished I’d had FixYa instead of waiting two days for someone to shut off the beeping Basement Watchdog when it announced it was no longer watching the sump pump.
Anyway, I was thrilled when, thanks to FixYa, “YJackie5” entered my life anonymously. I hauled my laptop downstairs and instead of exercising, I “chatted” with him for some 28 minutes, debating whether I was digital or analog or had an antenna, and if so, if it might have crash-landed on my roof during a windstorm.
We exchanged pleasantries about Antenna A and Antenna B, and scanned some channels together. It was love…at first.
Granted, the relationship had a few glitches, thanks to YJackie5’s difficulties with typing. There was the debate about whether I had a “aloder” TV.
“What is aloder TV?” I asked.
“Sorry. Older TV,” he replied.
The romance was over when YJackie5 limited my channel choices to one and plastered a full-screen view of a TV preacher across my set.
According to the transcript of our session, at that point I screamed: “I’m in worse shape than I started. There is no message as to which antenna, I have some preacher on the screen, and the menu operation is frozen.”
I would like to report that I ended the session, switched off the TV and promptly hopped back on the elliptical. But in truth, I simply ended the session and called the cable guy, which somehow resulted in a DVR hook-up and a lower monthly fee.
Now I am automatically recording Meet The Press, which guarantees 60 minutes of exercise a week. That is, if I don’t need FixYa to help me work the DVR.
Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder
