Drabble by Kevin Fagan for March 28, 2022

man i miss those days.

I hate when they portray us seniors as stupid.

Analog antenna?

They could be digital antenna, you know. TV IS still broadcast over-the-air for free.

What? You can still get OTA—we still have the big antenna on our house, and an A/B switch for it. Some of the digital subchannels you get OTA these days are better than just about anything on cable.

Yep, Ralph…you got called over for that…

She forgot the foil…

When I lived in a large, metropolitan area, I used a set of those to pull in about 30 channels. All digital though.

My guess is Grandma is trying to watch TV on her old analog, console TV and gets nothing. Thing is, it’s been nearly 13 years since digital converters were put out for sale to get the new signals… what’s Grandma been watching all this time? ;-)

I still use them on my bedroom TV

Send her a telegram explaining cable.

He’s rolling his eyes. Must be a lot of room up there.

That must be Honey Bunches’ Mom?

Try banging on the TV that always used to work.

In her mind it’s modern technology…

in case you missed it, that is an old console TV, the younger generation have never seen them and it will only receive analog broadcasts (good luck finding any that are on the air). Rabbit ears or not, it ain’t gonna work.

I don’t think Ralph is gonna be able to help with this problem.

He calls her Grandma. Most people in their 50’s do not have grandparents still living.

Not me! We had early cable, had 4 channels plus public tv and that all we needed.

No cable (’cept for the Internet), no TV (just a large computer screen), but I have Amazon, Netflix and soon Gaia. Plus zillions of old movies on DVD and the driver to play them.

The. FCC recently reallocated over-the-air frequencies to make them easier to receive. If you have lost some channels you used to get just have your tv re-scan. You might be surprised what you can receive.

We switched to digital television broadcasting back in 2009 if I recall. Talk about being late to the party.

We had an antenna on our house that required 3 people to adjust it. One watching the TV. Another relaying the messages. And one on the roof, moving the antenna.