英文短篇故事（纽约）405 The On-Off Buttons

 　　She called her cable¹ company. She told the rep, "If I press the System button, it turns on the cable box but not the TV. If I press the Power button, all I get is a black TV screen with a rectangle² that says HDMI. I have to keep pressing the same two buttons willy-nilly before I finally get a picture." The rep said, "Your remote³ isn't in sync with your TV. Follow these steps. Press the OK and TV buttons together. When the TV button turns red, press 228. That will turn your TV off. Then press the System button. That will turn your TV on—and off. That's it. You won't ever need to press your Power button again, unless you change the batteries⁴ in the remote." She said, "Well, I've never changed the batteries, so why did this happen in the first place?" The rep didn't know.

1 cable   

n.缆绳，索；电缆；电报；vt.电汇，打电报

参考例句：

• Don't forget to cable us as soon as you arrive.别忘了一到就给我发个电报。
• The worker attached a cable.工人连接电缆。

2 rectangle   

n.长方形，矩形

参考例句：

• Suppose the width of a rectangle is x metres.设长方形的宽是x米。
• He handed me a little rectangle of white paper.他递给我一张小小的长方形白纸片。

3 remote   

adj.遥远的，僻远的；细微的，稀少的，漠然的

参考例句：

• I'm afraid your chances of success are rather remote.我担心你成功的机会极小。
• The thing happened in the remote past.这件事发生在遥远的过去。

4 batteries   

n.电池；（蓄）电池（组）( battery的名词复数 )；一系列；排炮；层架式鸡笼

参考例句：

• to replace the batteries 更换电池
• He is certain that this TV set will operate on batteries. 他肯定这个电视机可以用电池。 来自《简明英汉词典》