TV-B-Gone

Today I am volunteering as a poll-watcher in the City of Miami elections. Early voting is in progress. 

I’m stationed at a polling site in a community center in the north end of Miami on the edge of the area known as Little Haiti. The conversation among the elections staff alternates sentence-by-sentence between English and Haitian Creole, both with the same Caribbean cadence and accent.

The Elections Clerk at this polling site is delightful, a nutritionist by trade and a proud alumna of FIU. She shares with me her recipe for the sauce she applies to snappers before she fries them. 

This morning, the large TV in the hall of the community center is playing Fox News, highly political and inappropriate for a polling site.

The young elections worker sitting nearby would prefer to see the football game, however the TV controls are in a locked-off area so the Clerk cannot change the channel or even turn off the TV. While she ponders the problem, I trot to my car and return with my TV-B-Gone, an electronic device the size of a matchbook that turns off any television.

The TV-B-Gone contains a microchip that cycles through all the TV “off” codes. Aim its infrared LED at a TV, press the button, and wait… it never fails. The IR beam will also bounce off reflective surfaces and light-colored walls, so you can use it surreptitiously.

One click, a brief pause, and the offending TV goes dark.

Are you wondering why Phil carries a TV-B-Gone in the glove compartment of his car?

I deploy the device in restaurants where TVs are interfering with the table conversation, or, on rare occasion when the devil gets into me, to create havoc in a sports bar. Never during a FIFA soccer match, though. The Argentinian fans are so spirited they might break something… or someone.

The Elections Clerk wants to buy her own TV-B-Gone ($15 on eBay) and maybe a cell phone jammer as well to use on her husband’s phone.