Don’t Mess with My Mom — Part 2

My mom was not above defending the honor of her children even if her children were a bunch of bad actors who lied about their misdeeds.

Years after the Arse hosing incident, my mom, in a display of righteous indignation, again defended her children when all evidence pointed to our guilt. And to the cable guy of all people.

It was 1977 and I was a freshman in high school when our cable company, Warner, introduced an interactive cable system in Columbus, Ohio. The system allowed subscribers to participate in live game shows, order pay-per-view movies, and watch sporting events and music videos. It was billed as the next generation of cable television and Columbus had been chosen as the city to launch it. The cable company hoped to make more money by allowing households to purchase the specific programming they wanted to watch (pay-per-view) versus paying an inflated monthly subscription rate.

The new cable system was called QUBE. It offered thirty channels. Ten were television stations that included Columbus’ network affiliates, a public access station, four out-of-town stations and a program listing channel. Ten channels offered community outreach programming like educational shows, religious shows, sports, and popular series from the 1950s. Ten channels were devoted to pay-per-view movies and sports. These we called the “P Channels.” The infamous P10 channel offered adult movies. (I learned this from my friend Jill. I would never have known it otherwise.)

So, because we were already subscribing to Warner Cable, the company called our house several times, pitching what a great new cable system QUBE was and how we should at least try it out. (At the time, Warner allocated many more resources to its sales department than its customer service department.) My mom kept declining their offers. She was worried that her kids already watched too much television. She was concerned about the additional cost. She and my dad were already paying $7.33 per month for regular cable. QUBE would cost a minimum of $10.95 per month.

When we learned that my mom had turned down several offers to subscribe to QUBE, my siblings and I started a campaign to convince her to change her mind. We begged: “Please!” We reasoned: “All of our friends have it.” We rationalized: “My friends know how you can get free movies.” Maybe it was our successful campaigning or maybe it was her wanting to end the nuisance phone calls, but by the time Warner called my mom for the fourth time, she finally succumbed.

It wasn’t long after we subscribed to QUBE, that Jeff and I learned from our classmates, a way to cheat the system so you could watch pay-per-view movies for free. All you needed was a paper clip and a little finger finesse. Our friends made it sound easier than it actually was.

The QUBE cable system came with a black console, called The QUBE, that acted like a remote but was five times the size and was connected to your television set with a thick, black cable. On the front of the two-inch thick console was a small hole, about the size of an earphone outlet. My friend Jill – the one who informed me about the adult movie channel — told me that, if you unwound a paperclip, you could stick the end of it into the little hole, jiggle it around a little bit, and Wa la! Free movies!

It was soon apparent that no one in my family possessed the finger finesse it took to manipulate The QUBE. After dozens of my own attempts, I was never able to trick the cable company into thinking I had paid to watch a premium channel.

We had QUBE for probably only two or three months when one day, the cable went out. It didn’t matter which button we pressed on the console; the only thing that showed up on the television screen was a rounded rectangle of static.

You can’t imagine what an uproar this caused in our house. We had at least three kids – and I was one of them – who were addicted to watching television after school each afternoon. We went berserk. Probably much like how my daughter would react if we threw away her iPad.

Warner Cable’s customer service department had a terrible reputation. And it didn’t help that they never answered their phone. When they did answer, you were always put on hold for so long that I’m sure most customers hung up without having a chance to complain or have their problem resolved.

My mom had a similar experience when our cable went out. Finally, after a couple of days and even more hours on hold, my mom was able to schedule a day and time for the cable service guy to come out and check out our problem. It felt like an eternity to us.

—   —   —

The day has arrived! Jeffrey, Jimmy and I are all smiles when we come home from school the afternoon the service guy is to come. Last night, Jeffrey “called” what we will watch first and I have dibs on what we’ll watch second. That’s how things roll in my family. You have to “call” everything. Lucky for the three of us, we usually agree on what we want to watch. Our smiles dissolve into scowls though, when we learn that the service guy, expected hours ago, has still not made an appearance. Our cable is still out.

Mom isn’t very hopeful that he’s going to show at all but we’re too desperate for TV to let go of our hope. It’s not until four o’clock that we hear the glorious sound of our doorbell. (Our doorbell has never before nor since sounded “glorious.” There was the time a couple of years ago though, when a policeman rang our doorbell and it sounded like the bells of salvation delivering us from evil. But that’s a story for a different time.)

Mom instructs us to stay where we are, sitting in the family room, bodies hunched toward the television, anticipation thick in the air. Will he get it fixed in time to watch The Munsters? We’ve already missed two of the shows we’d called.

I am sitting on the couch — I had called it – when the tardy service man follows my mom into the family room. He turns on the television and sees the static. He turns down the volume so we can no longer hear the fuzzy background noise. He picks up The QUBE and examines it.

I’m beginning to feel a bit nervous. Maybe I broke the box trying to rip off the cable company. I exhale in relief when the repair guy tells my mom he’s going to check the cable on top of the telephone pole, just outside our backyard. The problem is on the pole, not the box. I haven’t touched the pole.

We wait. We watch through the window as he climbs the pole. He’s up there only a few seconds before he climbs back down but it’s another several minutes before he comes back inside the house. What’s he been doing out there? I start thinking of worse-case scenarios.

And then it happens. The worse-case scenario.

The repairman addresses my mom, “Ma’am?”

“Yes? Did you find out what’s wrong?”

“Someone in your household has been tampering with The QUBE, and that’s a crime.”

“What do you mean someone’s been tampering with the QUBE box?” She asks, indignant.

“I mean, probably one of your kids, has been sticking something inside the top of the console, trying to access QUBE’s premium channels for free. And that is illegal.”

“Why do you think someone’s been tampering with it?”

“Because there are all kinds of scratch marks inside this little hole here.” He picks up The QUBE and points to the top of it.

“I assure you,” Mom says as she puffs up her chest, “No one in this household has done anything to that box. If it’s got scratch marks, it’s because Warner Cable gave it to us already damaged.”

“Well, ma’am, I’m going to have to confiscate the box,” the man explains evenly.

My mom, not so evenly, raises her voice a few decibels. “Take that box away! I never wanted it in the first place!” Way to go, Mom! Great defense, switching your family’s obvious guilt into an offensive attack!

The service guy gathers his tools, disconnects our QUBE console, and is escorted out the front door by my mom. My brothers and I looked at each other as they leave the room.

“She knows we’ve been trying to get free movies, doesn’t she?” I whisper.

“I’m pretty sure I told her when we were trying to talk her into getting QUBE. I said there’s a way we can get free movies,” Jeff whispers back.

“Wow. She lied to that guy.”

“I know. Cool, right?”

My mom walks back into the family room and then to the kitchen, where she starts preparing dinner. No one says a word.

And then it dawns on me. For as proud as I am of my mom for acting all high and mighty to the cable guy, I also feel like I’ve been slugged in the gut. Jeff, Jimmy and I are television junkies. We’ve already suffered through three whole days of TV withdrawal only to learn that now, thanks to my mom, we may never have cable again! What has she done?!