The Electronics Undertaker

I've been dealing with marine electronics for a long time and now recognize when death is close at hand. More likely it's emulating Norman Bates's mother who's telling the owner to call me. As a matter of fact I can sense the miasma of burned electronics through the phone during the call. The quavering desperation in the callers voice. The hesitant answers to questions like "When was the last time you used it?" "Hmmm, you don't remember?" "What model is it?" "Whoa, that's old, those vacuum tubes are really hard to find nowadays." What it's a sailboat? That means the radar is on the mast and the use of the bosun's chair along with someone with a strong back."

The coup de grâce in the conversation is the ever hopeful, "It could just be a loose wire you know." My inside voice is saying "sure buddy, but it's not statistically likely, and you should have called Hospice for this gear a long time ago." I hate these service calls. I will have to call the time of death and everyone is going to be unhappy including me. Like this is all my fault.  

Technical garbage confusion

This is a common issue for me. Seventy five ponds of vintage, but still operable glass tube television riding around in the back of the Parmain Laboratory's Mobile High Tech Marine Crisis Facility. There are three options for disposing of these hulks. The first is the "Green Way." This involves driving out to the dump's processing center, waiting in a long line with others who have dangerous items, like left over latex paint, old microwaves, and then me with the TV. The idiot box gets weighed, the magic number is fed into a computer that advises me the disposal fee will be $15.00. Another approach is to leave it on the street on or near trash day. The garbage service won't take the TV, but often an enterprising entrepreneur will see some redeeming value in it, and will make it disappear in the dead of night. A good morning is when you look, and it's gone. A bad morning is when it's still there with a note on it saying "Just leave flat screens jerkface." Plan C is to go behind a shopping center, and dump it in the Italian restaurant's bin. I have only heard rumors that a TV makes a satisfying plopping noise when it hits all of the discarded spaghetti and lasagna. Boy do I miss living in Chicago. You could put on the curb a cast iron tub, a body rolled up in a rug with a twenty dollar bill and bottle of Jack, and it just magically disappeared.