Ok, her TV didn’t blow up but when Chris went over there on Thursday afternoon after she’d knocked on our back window, as she loves to do several times each day, he discovered that her TV wasn’t working anymore and that it had a distinct electrical smell to it.
Our elderly neighbor Sofie told Chris that her son was going to bring her a new TV the next day. Why, then did she call our house twice and knock on the windows a few times? I’m not sure. I hadn’t been feeling well on Thursday and I was upstairs in bed trying to sleep when I’d heard the taps on the window. I didn’t get up because I was totally out of it … plus I figured she was just coming over to say hello like she does several times a day anyway.
Chris being the nice guy that he is decided to take our small TV that we keep in one of our guest bedrooms over to her. She’s elderly and easily bored so he thought this would help her pass the time through the evening until her son would show up with another TV for her. But her other son showed up while Chris was there and he’d brought a TV with him.
Cut to Friday. I guess Sofie didn’t have any problems with the TV on Thursday night, but on Friday she had problems. Between Chris and I we’ve been over to her house to turn on her TV or change the channel for her no less than 7 times.
She can’t see the displayed numbers on the TV when the channel changes, nor can she see the numbers on the TV converter in her hand. She likes leaving the TV on channel 4 so I really don’t know what the problem is. We’ve shown her how to select the numbers in a few different ways like counting the buttons or using the channel up and down control, but every time she gets herself on a different channel she calls us.
We’ve called her son and told him that he must get her a TV converter with gigantic buttons so that she can see the numbers. Maybe that will solve the problem. If it doesn’t she’s going to keep calling us and asking us to come over several times a day.
She refuses to live with her sons who have each invited her to come live with them. She likes living on her own and I don’t blame her. However in the past year there’s been a lot of signs that she’s not coping well on her own. She’s lonely, she’s fallen several times and now her eyes are obviously failing – plus the visits to fix her TV probably weren’t just because she couldn’t get the channel that she wanted back on, I’m sure they were cries of loneliness.
Neighbors! ARghhhhH!