"From Russia, With Cable"

By Jerry Zezima

If I had my own TV show, a sitcom like “Everybody Loves Raymond” that I would call “Some People Seem to Like Jerry,” the first episode would be about how I can’t work my own TV.

That was the sad situation when I had so much trouble with a faulty cable box that I wanted to fix it with a screwdriver. Unfortunately, vodka and orange juice would have dulled my senses even more.

So I called the cable company after my wife, Sue, who is more technologically advanced than I am, and that’s only because she knows how to change the batteries in the remote, couldn’t figure it out, either.

At least she doesn’t try to reason with inanimate objects by using language that can’t be printed in a family newspaper.

I used very polite language when I spoke on the phone with Ileana, a nice support person who said, “I will walk you through this.”

It was an apt term since I had to walk up and down the stairs to follow her instructions.

After trying unsuccessfully to reboot the TV (my idea of rebooting is to put my foot through the screen), I trudged upstairs to my office, where I had to press the WPS button on the modem.

Phone in hand, with Ileana on the other end, I went back downstairs and saw that the cable box was pressing my buttons because the screen had gone blank, a condition not unlike the one inside my head.

After I turned the TV off and then back on, and Sue unplugged it and plugged it in again, Ileana came to the sensible conclusion that we needed a new cable box.

“You can have a technician come to your house or you can return the box at the company store and get a new one,” she suggested.

“The store is right around the corner,” I said. “We’ll get a new one.”

I thanked Ileana and hung up.

Sue, always the voice of reason, said, “Won’t we have to program the new box?”

“Yes,” I said. “And we don’t know what we’re doing.”

So I made an appointment for a technician to come over.

The following afternoon, we met Deni, who came all the way from Siberia to save the day.

“I’ll fix the problem,” he promised in a charming Russian accent.

He asked me to turn on the TV and saw there was no connection.

“Why,” I asked, “do we need three remotes?”

“One is for the TV,” Deni explained, “one is for the cable box and the third one is the FireStick.”

“One of our granddaughters, who was then 6, came over one day and asked me to find her favorite cartoon,” I told Deni. “As I was fumbling with the three remotes, she stood in front of me with her hands on her hips and said, ‘You don’t know how to work your own TV?’ Then she grabbed the right remote and found the cartoon herself.”

Deni, who’s 35 but looks a lot younger, laughed and said, “Kids are smart.” He also said he just bought a PlayStation.

When I told Deni, who came to the U.S. two years ago, that I’m a newspaper columnist, he said, “I used to work as a press secretary for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in Russia.”

I asked how he was enduring our sub-freezing temperatures.

“One time in Siberia, where I grew up, it was 80 below zero Fahrenheit,” he said. “This is nothing.”

But I got a warm feeling when Deni said we didn’t need a new cable box.

“It’s outdated,” he said.

“So am I,” I noted.

“But you can still use it,” Deni said after making sure the TV worked again. “Just don’t get the remotes mixed up.”

“It’s a remote possibility,” I told him. “And if I have my own show, I’ll put you in the first episode.”

Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima