I Dream of Genie

How many Aggies does it take to re-program a garage door opener? None, because at the risk of sounding overly-suburban, I'd like to announce that we finally figured out how to program it ourselves! If you're thinking "What does S-O spell?" please humor me. Three years ago, we donated my old van to Goodwill, and OOPS . . . my transmitter was left in it. After that, we shared the other transmitter until OOPS . . . one of us lost it, too. Two years ago, I bought a replacement transmitter at Home Depot but we never could figure out how to make it work. Chalk it up to three college graduations, two marriages and a grandchild, but until now, it wasn't a high priority. The empty side of the garage has housed my convertible on the random days I've been willing to jump out of my car, use my single house key to open the front door run to the back door, push the garage door opener button, get back in the car, drive in the garage, and push the button again to close it. No telling what the neighbors have thought as they've undoubtedly watched this routine repeated scores of time! I don't know why, but today was the day I ventured to suggest that we dig out our Genie book and try once again to make the darn transmitter work.

It took a while, but we found the instruction book, the replacement transmitter, our Philips screwdriver and stepladder. We read the instructions and tried to follow the directions, but nothing happened. Since it had been so long, we decided the battery must have gone dead. I opened the back of the transmitter with a coin, like it said, but the whole "mother board" popped out, along with an unidentified plastic piece. It figures. We drove to the Walgreens to buy another battery, put it in, replaced the circuit board and tried it again. Nothing. David went in to eat lunch. I couldn't accept this. I have a Master's degree, and faithfully read instruction booklets--I even tore out the other three languages so I wouldn't get distracted!! So I checked the battery position, replaced the circuit board . . . and spotted where that little plastic piece that was meant to go--OOPS . . . it flipped the switch that changed the signal frequency and allowed the button to be pressed all the way down. Not wanting to get my hopes up too high, I held my breath as I pressed the Learn Code button, and watched the flashing light became . . . SOLID! I pressed the button one more time and . . . the angels in heaven rejoiced!! I proclaimed the marvelous gospel and David came running. I'm sure the neighbors thought we were nuts as we opened and closed and opened and closed the door. We were on a roll. Next we programmed the transmitter on my convertible visor. Then we got the transmitter to open the other garage door! And in less than two hours, my Saturday morning wish had come true. Both cars were sitting side-by-side inside the garage as I watched the doors go down in perfect synchrony. I couldn't have been happier if I had found Aladdin's magic lamp under all the junk that's still in my garage.