As a successful business woman who operates over nine different websites profitably, I find it annoying when a young “teeny-bopper”, that is young enough to be my grandchild, treats me like a “little old lady who doesn’t know a thing about electronics” when I go into a store to buy something for my computer business. 

But yesterday I was feeling exactly like they must have been picturing me.  And the biggest discovery of all was that even though they were selling the electronics I needed, they knew little more than I did. 

Now, I’m not someone who has to have the latest fad in gadgets as long as the old one still works fine.  My Montgomery Ward freezer is a year older than my oldest daughter and she celebrated her 40th birthday in October and the Litton microwave purchased in 1980 is still going strong.  They just don’t make them like they used to!  So I was disappointed when the ten year old VCR began giving me trouble.  The Sanyo TV that we had purchased shortly after moving to Flagstaff over twenty-five years ago still has a great picture.

Ron likes to record television programs and watch them later and this VCR just wasn’t working right.  I was appointed to go out and buy a new one. The adventure began.  I quickly discovered that you can’t just buy a VCR.  It has to be a combination VCR-DVD machine.  That information was followed by the realization that not all of them record–they just play.  And some of the boxes read “this product does not record from television.”  Others said that the only way you could use them was to “have a satalite or cable box” to attach it too.  As you might have guessed, we get our programing via antenna.

After visiting numerous stores, I finally found one at Walmart that looked like it would work.  Brought it home, pulled the purchase out of the box, and began the process of connecting it.  The in and out cables from my old VCR immediately found a home on this new one.  But there was one major problem.  The new one had a cable with a white, yellow, and red plug that found a place in the new VCR/DVD but, alas, the only outlet on my TV was for the antenna.  It wasn’t going to work!

So, before taking it back, I decided that the new Best Buy store would surely have someone who knew more about this stuff than I did.  This is when I met the “tenny-bopper that is young enough to be my grandson”.  He told me that all of theirs were too advanced for my loyal television set.  However, he did happen to have one that was the store brand and had a “special box” built in that took care of these multi-colored plugs.  All I had to do was to bring it home and plug in my antenna. 

I was feeling pretty good by then.  He assured me it was exactly what I needed and what’s more, it was over $100 cheaper than the one I still had in my car to return to Walmart.  Thanking him for his expertise, I took it home, unpacked it and what did I find? That same damn cord with the red, yellow, and white plugs on each end.  He lied.

I decided to return the one to Walmart first but stopped at Sam’s Club on the way.  There I met a female version of the “teeny-bopper” at Best Buy.  She told me that the best way to determine if any of them would work was to look at the back of all their display models and see if they had the right fittings.  We did and, although one looked like it would work to me, shaking her head, she told me that none of them would work.  I would just have to buy a new television.

From there I returned the $249 one to Walmart and got a refund.  While in the store, I talked to another young man who worked in their electronics department and had the first ray of hope.  He told me that the answer to my problem was a conversion box to plug that mysterious multi-colored cord into and it only cost $16. 

By this time, I had the $249 refund from Walmart and the $89 Best Buy set still in my car.  I went ahead and bought the conversion box at Walmart and took the Best Buy set back home.  Unpacking it once again, I discovered that there was no way to connect my antenna to it.  So back to Best Buy for a refund on that one.  They were as knowledgable as they had been on my first visit.  Then it was on to Radio Shack.  They had one model in stock but it wouldn’t work either.

I had learned a lot in the 5 hours that I had spent going from store to store trying to find one of these machines that would record and play on my television set.  Rembering the one at Sam’s Club, that I thought would work but was assured by the female teeny-bopper that it would not, I decided to take my television life into my own hands and returned to try that one.  After all, by this time, I had become an expert in buying and returning.

Alas, the last one had been sold.  But I was told I could buy the display machine, minus the box which they couldn’t find, and I would get a discount of $50.  That sounded like a deal to me.  Brought it home, hooked it up via the box that the Walmart expert had steered me to, and it works!

I’ve put my hands over my ears whenever I hear someone say that everyone is going to have to have a digital TV by 2009 because I’m hoping my loyal set will still be working by then.  But I learned that there is hope.  That expert young man at Walmart has assured me that they’ll have a conversion box for that as well.