My TV Broke and What That Means in Cuba
By Pedro Pablo Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – My TV is resting way too much. I don’t usually watch anything but a film I find interesting or a show here and there, but one of these Turkish series that has women swooning over the male stars has caught my attention recently.
To tell you the truth, it isn’t the best and it’s not the main actor, but if you’re charming and have to play the hunk then you just immediately get sex symbol status. It’s one of the manifestations of what psychologists call the “halo effect”, and women are usually more emotional and imagine their own movies in their head.
I recognize that, as a man, I might not be able to pick up on all the details they do. But otherwise, the series has all the right ingredients to entertain you. Melodrama, espionage, action, and an interesting plot, at least for me.
But that’s not the point, the thing is that just as I was getting really excited and waiting to see what happens in the last few episodes, my TV broke.
I wanted to be wise and find out the repair shop’s phone number, so I didn’t have to make a journey in vain. My preventive strategy was more than justified, the man doesn’t go to the workshop every day, so we set a date.
I woke up the earliest I ever have that morning. A neighbor had lent me his wheelbarrow and I took the TV. When I got there, there were 7 TVs waiting and it wasn’t even 8:00 AM yet.
The repair person appeared around 9 AM, but he didn’t have the key. The manager wasn’t there either, she appeared half an hour later. We went into the workshop and the second part of my wait began. I estimated that it would be noon by the time it was my turn. In fact, there were still two TVs ahead of me around that time.
I supposed they’d shut for lunch, but it seems they work all day through. When he was ready for me to give him mine, an ill-timed blackout came, and everyone became discouraged at that time. Luckily, they decided to wait, and the electricity came back on an hour later. Finally, it was my turn, and I was able to give him my set.
The repairman, who was a chatty and sociable guy, confessed that he loved his job but that he felt frustrated sometimes, because he has to work magic to fix broken machines. He has pretty much nothing, nor the right conditions to work, he brings the fan from home, for example, and almost all of the parts he has, he has to find on the illicit market.
In the end, he soldered a few parts of the TV together, but he couldn’t fix the sound. The speakers were blown. That’s why my TV is only half-fixed.
I took it home and it’s resting now, more than usual. Meanwhile, I’ll need to find a speaker on my own or wait for him to tell me when he gets one in. I just have to wait and say goodbye to the Turkish series for now.
The other option is to throw it into the reservoir…