Jeb s Collection TV

Автор: Рамиро Лебедев-Толмач


Nick and Mary weren’t economically well off. Mary had a constant job, but Nick could never seem to hold a steady job down for more than a couple of months.

During his lengthy bouts of unemployment, Nick naturally became bored, so he started pressuring Mary for a new TV (that actually worked) and for a hook-up to Cable TV (he wanted to watch sports on ESPN). Mary finally gave in, and one day they bought a nice 27’’ solid state TV with a remote control, 240 channels and onscreen viewer so that he could watch two channels at the same time. Needless to say, their four children were very excited about this development.

They subscribed to the local cable TV company and ordered one Movie Channel. In all they had 85 channels to choose from including HBO for movies, ESPN and USA for sports, MTV and VH1 and 2 for music videos, and Nickelodeon.

Unfortunately there were six people in the house and though they might be able to see two channels at once, only one actually had sound. This obviously led to a few arguments.

While Nick always wanted to watch sports (he was a big Cowboy fan), John was into outer space and liked Star Trek. Patrick was interested in only movies, Alice liked both Star Trek and movies but was particularly fond of MTV and the other music video channels. Little Tom only cared about cartoons and so was hooked on Nickelodeon. Though Mary worked all day, when she came home at night she liked to catch up on what was happening with ‘Santa Barbara’.

The house had turned into a madhouse with all the arguments. Before long, Nick picked up another job and decided to invest in a second TV, smaller than the first, as well as a VCR. This eased some of the congestion since they could watch 2 TVs and tape a third channel. But the problems still occurred.

Then Nick saw a parabolic antenna. That would give him even more channels, if only… no, he couldn’t, and what if the kids saw it...