Granma Tilley’s New TV Sorted out via the Internet

A storm zapped Granma Tilley’s TV set. I was able to buy one, get it delivered to her in Richmond (VA), and have it installed – all online on my laptop with a 4-day turnaround.

I know on the surface that seems like completely normal stuff, but for a minute, wrap your head around doing this in July of 1991:

Imagine with me

From your house phone, maybe you call a Sears in Richmond, VA to see if the model of TV you saw at your Sears is in stock. As you read the model number off a piece of paper, the associate tells you that TV is sold out and could possibly be on next week’s truck. So, you call another Sears to find out the TV isn’t at that one either and that this other Sears doesn’t do deliveries in the zip code your Grandmother lives in anyway.

You have the choice between calling next week or going back to your Sears after work tomorrow evening to find other model TVs that are similar. Instead of going home to call Richmond Sears, you ask your Sears rep to call and check the inventory for any of the TVs you have listed. The rep is kind enough to call after checking out a mom alone with three kids for whom she’s Easter shopping off the clearance rack.

You wait patiently because, after all, it’s a long-distance phone call that won’t be going on your BellSouth bill, so why not. Who are you to be in a hurry? Good news! The rep tells you one of the Magnavox models on your list is in stock and that it’s a popular one. The rep asks if you want to make the purchase now over the phone to make sure you get one. You politely decline because you don’t want to give out your credit card number over some phone in a department store. That’s insane.

You leave for home in a great mood feeling like you got all green traffic lights on the drive. You go directly to the kitchen phone with your paper with the Magnavox model number circled. The phone rings at the Sears in Richmond. The phone rings some more. The phone continues to ring until an articulate recorded voice recites the shopping center’s business hours and asks if you want to hear them again by pressing the pound key (because # used to be called pound). Your grandmother’s Sears is in Richmond. In Virginia. In the Eastern Standard Time Zone.

You’ll have to call back tomorrow after work when Granma’s Sears is open again to find out if that model of Magnavox TV set is still in stock. You’re gonna play it smart this time. You’re gonna call from the breakroom at work on your lunch break, but not while you’re eating your chicken salad sandwich because that phone is gross and you never actually let it contact your ear/face. You dial the Richmond Sears to get a buzzing sound before you finish punching in the numbers. That’s weird. Did you press a wrong number? Nope. The breakroom telephone doesn’t dial long-distance because this workplace isn’t a charity, and that phone is there to dial no one but Domino’s Pizza or the boys at the loading dock.

After the long day at work, you get home to call Granma’s Sears once more to find out – you guessed it – that second choice Magnavox CRT TV has sold out. You hate life and wish for a day you can do this all on the internet thinking “What the hell is the Internet??”