Flip Down Car DVD Players

The discount auto DVD player actually was mentioned in the father's prayer as the family got ready to leave the driveway on a two thousand mile trip to Yellowstone and back. The father's prayer request was only partially in jest, because mom and dad hoped that the stack of thirty movies would keep the four children somewhat entertained over the next two weeks on the road. The prayer request went something like this, "God, give us a safe trip, and please don't let this junky DVD player I bought at the last second break down on the trip." An understandable prayer and one that all people in the husband's circumstances might pray given the fact that the man only paid fifty nine ninety five for a small four inch video screen that looked like the thing had been wired in the basement of a third grader.

Two weeks before the trip, the husband and wife had sat in the showroom of a car dealership and had come within a hairsbreadth of buying a new family van with, among other toys, two flip down car DVD players. This rolling babysitter buggy had one DVD for the second seat and one for the third, and get this; each one could run its own separate movie. A movieplex on wheels! This was more than a dream come true for parents; the van would make traveling like a stay at a weekend spa. The days of playing car bingo were long since gone and even a game of I Spy would only work for about seven minutes with a generation absolutely addicted to visual stimulus. But sadly, the salesman played one too many of the "I have to go talk to my manager" games and the husband walked out.

The next day, the husband started to think seriously about the upcoming long trip and knew there had to be some entertainment for the kids or his dear wife would need a wig to cover her bald spots. He wondered whether he should install a couple of flip down car DVD players that would go in the headrests, or get a bigger player with a seventeen inch monitor and mount in the ceiling just in front of the second row of seats. To say that this man was mechanically challenged would be an understatement. The husband had once cracked a new toilet after torqueing it down too tightly and then proceeded to cut the front side of a lavatory cabinet by forgetting to turn the cabinet around for modifications. Whenever this man picked up a tool, the wise woman of the house had the kids tackle the man and disarm the poor dude. He went ahead and bought the big ceiling mounted flip down car DVD player with seventeen inch screen for a cool eight hundred dollars and brought it home under cover of night so no family member would see the father had tools in hand. He opened the instructions and the words started flying at him: GUI, Interface, Inverter, RF, DTS, Crossover, Modulator, Power port, GPS and Headliner.

For a few minutes the man sat down and cried, then got up and decided that any real man could install one of these flip down car DVD players, so he thought the best thing to do was rip out the headliner and start running wires. The instructions could wait till the man had a problem. The father worked all night and by morning the deed was done. Wires, inside door liners and wiring harnesses from underneath the front dash were lying outside the garage in the early morning dew. When the father tried to start the car to move it, there was silence. No starting of the engine, and need one say, no movies playing on the DVD player. The man's wife came out and said nothing, which made it worse.

The father had done over two thousand dollars damage to the only car the family owned. The really coolest of the cool flip down car DVD players with the seventeen inch screen went back to the store, duct tape around the packing box. When the car returned from the garage the next week, there was still enough money to go on the trip that had been planned, but now the only option was down to a single very bargain basement discount auto DVD player. Sixty bucks bought a two monitor DVD system that had little pouches that slipped over the front seats to hold the screens for second seat passengers. As stated before, the wiring looked suspect, like perhaps the father had wired it up. The discount auto dvd player had a six month warranty, but the father knew the thing looked like it would never make two weeks. The father was an expert in those things. "And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4)

The trip went fine and the children loved driving up within a few feet of some bears. The moose were huge and they even saw a coyote. Days of being in a swimming pool at the lodge had darkened all of them till the sun block came out, but each member of the family slept long and peacefully each night. Someone is wondering about that discount auto DVD player, right? The thing did, in fact, breakdown on the way out, somewhere in Nebraska. The player died on the third viewing of a movie about a mermaid. But the family had so many things to talk about that the player wasn't needed. I guess in the right situations, parents can be as interesting as flip down car DVD players.

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