An Interlude: My Superhero Origin Story

While you all await with bated breath the outcome of my riveting attempts to fix an audio cassette deck, this seems a relevant moment to share an email that my father sent to me after reading my first post here on The Patch Bay earlier this week. It possibly explains some things.

When you were about 2 we experienced technical difficulties with our VCR. It made ungodly noises when rewinding, and soon ceased operation altogether.

 

 

Ware [, Massachusetts] being Ware in those days (which is to say, a town in the 1990s which much resembled a town in the 1960s), there was an appliance store on Main Street which advertised TV and radio repairs.  I took the VCR in.  "What's wrong with it?" asked the guy.  "Dunno," I said.  "It doesn't work."

 

 

Since the VCR had become an indispensable part of our family existence by that time, the notion of being without one for a week was daunting.  I borrowed the church VCR and hooked it up in the rectory.

 

 

The next day you and I were in the family room.  You were puttering around. As I watched, spellbound, you grabbed a fistful of marbles from the marble run, toddled across the room to the VCR, poked in the flap of the tape-insert slot, and were on the verge of emptying your handful of marbles into the unit.

 

 

I lunged.

 

 

We had a heart-to-heart.

 

 

A few days later I returned to the shop to pick up the resurrected unit.  "You'll never guess what was wrong with it," said the guy with a sly grin.  "Marbles," said I.  Half-crestfallen, half-annoyed, he demanded, "If you knew that, why didn't you tell me when you brought it in?!"  "I didn't know that when I brought it in," I said, "It came in subsequent revelation."  He shrugged and asked for 15 bucks.