The Curse of the Green Number 3
After a long day of moving into my first apartment, my two best friends and I were ready for a break. The apartment wasn't much more than a glorified hole in the wall, but that hadn't stopped me from cramming it completely full of stuff -- a fact my friends reminded me of at least once per trip up the flight of stairs.
Within an hour or so, we had assembled my new entertainment center which consisted of pieces of wood stacked on top of stolen and mismatched milk crates. While unpacking my box of living room stuff, one of my friends ran across my Super Nintendo.
"Dude, I didn't know you had one of these! Let's hook it up!"
While I began hooking up the Super Nintendo, my friends picked up my couch (a heavy sleeper sofa) and moved it to in front of my television. When they set it down, I heard a "crack" -- one of those cracks that, when you hear it, you instantly realize something just broke.
The three of us looked under the couch and instantly saw what had made that sound. My television remote, once flat, was now "V" shaped with a couch leg sitting in the middle of it. We scooted the couch back and pulled the remote out, but the damage was done. We laughed, tossed it aside, and sat down to begin gaming.
I finished hooking up the SNES, and turned both it and the television on. I returned to the couch, and when the TV warmed up, the three of us sat there looking at a big, green number 3, superimposed over the top of the Super Mario All Stars menu.
"You have to set the channels," my friend said. This was the first time I had turned on the TV since I moved, and it was one you had to manually set the channels in on.
I walked up to the television and read the buttons on the front of the set. "On, Volume Up, Volume Down, Channel Up, Channel Down," I said.
Slowly, the three of us turned our heads and looked at my remote, which now resembled a taco more than a tortilla.
I tried the "add channel" button on the remote, but it didn't work. In fact, with one of my friends squeezing the remote back together, all we could get to work was "7" and "Volume Up". Neither one were particularly helpful in this situation.
Eventually, we just decided to play. Imagine trying to play Super Mario Brothers with a big huge number 3 in the middle of the screen. The 3 stretched to within an inch of the top and bottom of the screen.
On the first level of SMB3, the plant that shoots at you from its tube was completely blocked by the 3.
"Look out, the 3 is shooting at you!" I yelled, and my friends began laughing.
Later, we played Mortal Kombat. Part of our new strategy was hiding behind the 3 and jumping out at just the right moment. At one point, my friend was foot sweeping me over and over and you couldn't see him at all.
"That 3 is kicking your butt!" my other friend screamed.
We played SNES deep into the night, laughing and cutting up and trying to see around a big huge number 3 in the middle of the screen that I lived with for the next several years. The Emerson television was not compatible with any of the universal remotes I tried. Worse yet, I called Emerson once and they quoted me $75 for a replacement remote -- for a 13" TV!
Believe it or not, I still have that TV. On my fifth wedding anniversary, seven years after this story took place, my wife surprised me with a replacement remote control for my TV. After seven years, I was finally freed from the big green 3 that had cursed my television for so many years.
I still own this TV, and it's currently hooked up in the corner of my game room with a NES, SNES, N64 and Sega Genesis all hooked up to it. Whenever I play games on it, I often think of the big ugly 3 that haunted it for so long.
The remote, however, is kept in a safe place.
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Originally Posted by Flack
