Sally Struthers

Remember her? Sit-Com fame, then went on to peddle classes late at night during the birth of the info-mercial?
I musta dozed off in front of them one too many times, becuase I just fixed our TV/VCR last night. Well...FIXED, if you consider that it now functions as a TV, but the VCR component is non-funtional. S'ok, though, right? Maybe I only dozed off during PART of the commercial. The whole thing started like this:

As I was getting ready to leave the hospital last night http://www.alicepeckday.org/, the med-surge nurse who I'd just been talking to told me that I had a phone call, and "it sounds like a kid." hmmmmm...
"Hello?"
"Hi, Gene. I wanted to call you to tell you that the tv downstairs is broken."
"Broken? How did that happen? Is everyone ok?" (you can NEVER be sure.....)
"It turns itself off right after you turn it on. The screen says 'eject', but there is no tape in there, and then it shuts off."
"Ok, well, I will take a look at it. Can you tell mom that I am leaving now?"
"yep."
"Ok, thanks! Love you, sleep tight!"
"K'bye."
::click::

HUH? it was working just fine 4 hours ago. When it rains......

So i got home to find T in a mood. She was getting another headache, her belly was bothering her again, and she had JUST managed to put her shadow (Z) to bed. Oh, and the tv/vcr was dead. Just like the computer monitor. Two items in one day. What, pray tell, will be the third??

Armed with my left-over bowl of salad (I got paged just as I was turning the steak on the grill), I went to see what the damage was. T showed me a piece of clear plastic that Z had found INSIDE the slot where the vcr tape usually goes. Great. Well, looks like we may have solved the problem. Now how do we fix it?????
Sally? Need a little help here!
Against my better judgement, I took the back off of the unit. I don't know what it is that I expected to find. Or more to the point, I had an idea, but NOT what I would do once I saw the guts of this thing. Ok, the back is off, screws are counted and in a pile off to the side. Let's dig deeper. Surprisingly, the VCR part comes out VERY easily. And so did another piece. Fell out right into my lap.

At this point, T came down stairs, muttered, "oh my goodness" as she walked by, and then disappeared back upstairs.

Ten minutes, some SUPER GLUE, and 4 pieces of duct-tape later, I put it all back together, and turned it on.

Sally would be proud. Or at least smiling. The TV works, as do video games. The VCR, however....well...get the jelly, cause the VCR is TOAST.

For future reference, here is what the innerds look like....