The Not So Universal Interconnectedness of Remotes

In Urban Bohemian's latest post, he mentions giving his cousin a mini-tutorial on how to use his universal remote.

I totally get this. The universal remote is anything but.

We have one. It's different from my sister's. It's different from my friend's. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever encountered two that look or work the same outside of a store display for universal remotes. I swear my brother-in-law's is controlling the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. I have yet to successfully navigate it. (The remote or the orbiter. Shhh, don't tell NASA.)

When my mother, a talking-head-aholic, comes to visit, I am on standby at all times, because she'll want to switch between the MSNBC political wonks and the CNN political wonks* and the TV will either go to fuzz or the "Are you sure you want to purchase Naughty Minxes?" screen the minute she touches the remote.

Even people trained to use their universal remote occasionally hit the wrong button causing others** to go into endless gnashing of teeth and the wailing, good god, the wailing. ALLLLLRIGHT, already with the wailing!

There's just no reason this has to be so hard. We need a standards committee. We need someone to invent a universal universal remote. I'd do it but I gotta go--I inadvertently ordered "Mandy Does McKeesport" and, you know, if you miss the beginning it's impossible to follow the plot.


* And, really, shouldn't they just merge and call it Wonkavision?

** You know who you are.