About three weeks ago, something very strange happened, which still remains unexplained. The day was Easter Sunday, which also happened to be the last day of the NHL regular season. As we got the house ready for a visit from our families, I turned on the TV (50" Samsung DLP) to catch SportsCenter and noticed a horizontal line across the top of the screen that looked pixelated. I changed channels to see if it was just that channel, but all HD channels had the same horizontal line. Furthermore, all non-HD channels were virtually unwatchable due to a checkerboard pattern across the entire screen. I figured it was probably just a Comcast issue, so I turned off the TV and thought I'd check back later.
A few hours later, after everyone had arrived, I was talking to Shawnna's Dad, Rusty, and mentioned the TV issue. He loves to tinker, so I turned on the TV and showed him what was happening. He thought we should isolate the issue by unplugging all the components from the back of the TV and then adding them back one-by-one to see what's causing the interference. So, I unplugged everything except the DVD player and turned it on. The result was the same checkerboard pattern. It was then that we knew it was a TV issue and not bad Comcast reception.
Since the TV is only 3.5 years old, I called Best Buy to see how much it would cost for the Geek Squad to come out and take a look. They charge $150 to just come to your house (not including labor or parts to fix anything). So, I figured I would just buy a new TV and started to look online; the NHL playoffs were starting soon, so this was important. Rusty had one final idea: let's take off the back of the TV and look inside, because something could just be loose. So, that's what we did. We unscrewed the back of the TV, took off the cover and did the typical guy thing; we looked at the jumbled mess of wires and circuits, shook our heads, squinted our eyes like we were concentrating on how we were going to fix it, then put the cover back on without touching a thing. I turned the TV on to check if our manly stares had scared the TV straight, but there was no change.
Frustrated, we turned away from the TV in defeat. A few seconds later, Shawnna said, "It's fixed! Kaitlyn threw her butterfly at the TV and the second it hit, the screen went back to normal." We turned back around, looked at the TV and sure enough, the screen was back to normal. Being the skeptic that I am, I didn't really believe that a small, plush butterfly could really fix a TV and I've been waiting for the issue to reappear ever since, but it's now been almost three weeks and the TV has been in perfect working order ever since. So, the only logical explanation is that, unbeknownst to us, Kaitlyn has been playing with a magic butterfly virtually her whole life and decided to release its magic on Easter Sunday at my time of need; it couldn't just be coincidence...
If any of you have TV issues, I'd be willing to drive Kaitlyn and the magic butterfly to your house for just $100 (time & labor inclusive) - results are not guaranteed.
