Service

What in the world ever happened to service? I remember when I was just about knee-high to a grasshopper, my dad got us our very first color television. We were, I think, the last family in the free world to have a color TV, and this was no gem. It was in a giant cabinet with a record player on one side, and a radio on the other. In the middle of this monstrosity was the little green screen of the television. Surrounded by that kind of dull goldish-yellow metal. The screen was more round that square, and much more fish bowl than flat.

I remember when the thing would quit working. Not too much worry for us kids, we were usually outside anyway. Heck the colors on that thing were so washed out you might have just as well been watching a light bulb. At any rate, when the thing would go out, papi would call up the television repair man, and he would come over to the house. He would show up in his TV repair man's van, with his gray coveralls and his little metal toolbox and fix the television.

There is a point to this trip down memory lane, I promise. Fast forward t the wonderful year of 2007. I refused to subject myself to the same horrific television viewing experience as papi 'enjoyed.' Nope, I did better. Some years ago my grandmother (rest her soul) was feeling generous and handed out some money to everyone. It was lucky for us, our 27 inch RCA television that we'd be watching and thoroughly enjoying for the past 14 years was starting to get that hourglass figure in the picture tube. It was excuse enough to use some of the money to purchase a new television. We went with a Sony projection TV from Circuit City (back when we still had a Circuit City). And it has served us well for about 5 years now.

Suddenly, it doesn't do so well with the showing of the picture. The reds and blues are off kilter from everything else - or everything else is off-kilter from the blue which is off-kilter from the red - or...well I don't know what is off-kilter, I just know that Saving Grace is not supposed to be a 3D television program, but it looks like one on my TV.

Doing some Googling I find that there is something called an IC something or other that has probably gone kaput and must be replaced, and the convergence re-aligned by a professional. The Sony website says the closest authorized Sony service center is Servi-Tronics over in Lawrence. Being fairly certain all these projection TVs are fairly standard, and probably any competent television repair man should be able to fix it, I start calling local.

Turns out, Topeka has only 2 television repair shops. And get this, neither of them will come to the house to look at, fix or even pick the television up. Oh, the folks from Lawrence will come to the house for an extra $40 but the folks in Topeka won't come to the house at all. I don't have a truck, and I don't have a trailer. Basically, I have zero methods for getting this television to a repair shop. Unless I want to rent a uhaul, which will probably cost more than the $40 I would pay to give my business to the Lawrencians.

It is just too bad that I have to have someone come from a nearby town...a town that is smaller than Topeka, to have my television fixed. That service is such a dirty word these days. That a guy who tries to make a living repairing televisions doesn't even have the sense to think "hey, if I'm going to work on projection televisions, maybe I should offer (for a fee) to at least pick up and drop off these things for the customer."

Maybe the shop in Lawrence has to make house calls to remain a Sony certified repair facility shop thing, and maybe they don't, I don't know. I only know that they will get money from me, and the local guys won't get squat. Except maybe I'll call them and explain that I went with the company from Lawrence because they offer a little thing called "service".