Be specific of what you wish for

As usual, this all began innocently enough. My sister gave me a television for Christmas. I didn't need another TV but I pretended that I did. I eventually put it in my bedroom, although I am philosophically opposed to TV's in bedrooms (cuz that were you go to get away from the TV). The TV has been up there ever since Christmas -- I've never watched it because there was no cable connection in my bedroom (that philosophical thing again) and I couldn't figure out how to attach the rabbit ears.

Meanwhile I keep sitting off the security alarm, and the security company keeps calling, and if you don't respond in time they call the police. This has gotten old for all parties involved. The problem has been that I have very few phones connected to the landline -- regular visitors will recall that the only one that works is in a basement bathroom. There has definitely not been one in my bedroom, you probably get the idea why by now.

So today the plan was to have a phone line put in my bedroom, but not a cable connection -- and to put a cable connection in the guest bedroom just in case I ever have guests. That was the plan. I thought that I had adequately explained the plan to the installers -- phone in bedroom, cable in guest bedroom.

It turns out, so the installer told me, that there already was a cable connection in the guest bedroom. Good! Saved that expense. Below are photos of the actual execution of The Plan!

Above is a photo from the guest bedroom. The pre-existing cable connection is on the right. The installer put in the phone jack to the left. Okay, there already was a jack by the bed, but okay. Now the good part. He ran a new cable connection behind the new phone jack but didn't connect it to anything. Meanwhile the, you know, pre-existing cable jack is not actually connected to the, you know, cable system. So, oddly enough, I still have no working cable connection in the guest bedroom although there are now two different cable wires running to that bedroom.

Wait, it gets better. The photo below is of the phone jack that he installed in my bedroom. As you can see, it is an actual phone jack, behind the nightstand, and it actually works. If you look closely, however, you will notice that the same outlet also has a cable connection. Something that I specifically said that I didn't want but not a big problem, but keep reading below the photo of the combined phone/cable outlet..


Now for the really fun part. The newly installed phone/cable outlet is behind the nightstand next to my bed. The following photo shows the relationship between that outlet and the TV.

The black object just barely in the frame in the lower-left corner of the picture is the nightstand behind which lurks the newly installed cable outlet. To actually attach the cable to the TV, of course, would mean running a loose coaxial cable across the carpeting to the exact opposite wall in the room. Functional perhaps, but neither very attractive nor safe.

And, yes, I have exactly the same carpeting as your local cineplex, we have been over that before. And, yes, I have no draperies in my bedroom, I'm a heathen.