The Immaculate Reception (and I'm NOT Talkin' Steelers Football)

My name is Val, and I am a cobbler.

No, I'm not a tasty, deep-dish fruit pie in a 9x9 Pyrex dish, with sugared crust oozing syrup out of slits in the top.

No, I'm not an old-fashioned shoemaker, of the sort who might whip up a lying, long-nosed boy out of spare wood.

No, I am not a proud male fanning my tail feathers, almost the national bird. Oops! That was close. I still have Thanksgiving on my mind.

My name is Val, and I am a cobbler. I make do. Forget my hair pick back at home in the dark with no mirror? I simply grab a plastic fork out of my classroom cabinet, and fluff my coif with those four tines. They can darn near take an ear off, too.

Perhaps you've gathered that I live in the black hole of wireless transmissions. My home could be the Island of Misfit Electronic Gewgaws. It's not their fault. They're misunderstood. Underpowered. Abandon all hope of connection, ye who enter here. No phone nor laptop shall communicate with the outside world if my local geography has its say.

Last week, I wanted to listen to our school team play in a Thanksgiving basketball tournament. I knew that I could not stream it over my feeble internet. That was Hick's idea. And why we roll our eyes and say, "Phhtttt" every time he opens his mouth. I sent The Pony on a search for my old-style bulky cassette player/AM/FM/CD player radio. It's not a rectangular boom box, but shares a branch on that family tree. It's kind of a cobalt blue fat disc with a silver plastic handle on top, and two speakers in silver screen mesh that look like fly eyes.

In years past, I've tried to listen to the game while baking my Thanksgiving goodies. There's no good reception in the kitchen, even with Ol' Big Eyes sitting on the kitchen counter. Or the cutting block. Or on the table, right in front of the window. Black hole. This year, the game was the last of the evening. My goodies were strewn about the kitchen, awaiting their last ride. The Pony found Ol' Big Eyes silently watching us from the top of Frig. The three of us headed to my dark basement lair, leaving Frig to ruminate on his overactive icemaker.

In a deleted scene from Frankenstein, we unplugged the laser printer, plugged in Ol' Big Eyes, pulled out his antenna, pulled out the drawer full of past tax returns, plopped OBE on top, spun him around a couple of times, clipped two magnets of a yellow chip clip on OBE like an erstwhile permanent defibrillator, draped an empty Slim Jim box on top of the antenna, and wedged a losing scratch-off ticket between the handle and the chip clip.

My name is Val, and I am a cobbler. A cobbler who listens to high school basketball games in her dark basement lair with virtually zero electromagnetic waves penetrating the underground concrete walls.