To the Editor:
What's wrong with this picture?
I'm sitting in the library in Kade. I'd be watching the news right now if there was anything to see. There's something wrong with the picture: it's missing. Come to think of it, the whole TV has been missing from Kade for two months now. I stare out over the bare pedestal, where the TV once sat, and into the snow. The last time I watched CNN there were green leaves on the trees.
You won't find "theft of television from German House library" in the security notebook no matter how hard you look. It hasn't been stolen. (Unfortunately, this didn't prevent security from waking a Kade resident at some awful early-morning hour to see if perhaps they had "borrowed" it.)
The television is being "repaired," that's what they tell us. I should point out that it wasn't really broken in the first place. (Well, it was a little bit broken.) Originally the plastic cover over the channel selector switch was missing; now the whole television is missing. The switch mechanism itself was still working and could still be pressed using a straw. The remote worked as well.
In a fit of naivete, the residents of Kade decided to put in a work order to have the switch-cover replaced. Now our television is sitting somewhere in Elyria.
It would have been quite clever to leave the television in place (so we could use it.) while waiting for the missing part to arrive. Instead, the TV was removed to Elyria. The missing part took 6 weeks to get to the AV repair business. Unfortunately, the eagerly anticipated part didn't fit. The correct part should arrive within a week, we were told. That week has passed and the television is clearly still missing.
Res-life tells us that they're quite happy with the service provided by the unnamed Elyria AV repair business. Quite happy?
What's wrong with this picture?
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 9; November 15, 1996
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