THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 28, 1996 TAG: 9601240062
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: My Job
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
BEER, CHIPS, dip, the big recliner - none of it's going to matter tonight if the TV won't work. What good is the Super Bowl if you can't see the game?
So even though NFL fans are still flat broke from Christmas like everybody else and have no business writing a check or charging one cent more, they've robbed Peter to pay Marvin. That's Marvin Davis and others like him who can get that TV set up and in working order by kickoff.
Davis is a TV repairman, everybody's favorite guy in the days before the big game. You wouldn't know it by standing in his Chesapeake shop last week.
``People are crazy,'' Davis said, his lanky frame collapsed in an office chair. ``The most nicest customer in the world will turn into a raving lunatic if they think you can't fix their TV by the Super Bowl.''
The annual fix-it frenzy loomed on the horizon. The face-off in Arizona was just days away. And just a few feet away in the workroom, TV sets were stacked to the ceiling on every available storage shelf, waiting for a visit from the doctor.
``People will have that set that's been sitting there dead a month now and haven't gotten it fixed because they can't afford it and now they'll go ahead and put it on their VISA,'' he said.
Customers don't care what it costs, agree in a heartbeat to pay extra if that's what it takes and even help get the job done.
``They get irate if you tell them you have to get a part first and it may not make it here on time. Once I even had a customer drive to Norfolk and get a part for me,'' he said. ``And this time of year people want a lot of projection TVs fixed. I've had people rent a trailer and bring it in when I didn't have time to go get it.''
Davis knew it would only get worse. By Friday, business at Davis Electronic Service would reach a fever pitch. More desperate customers would bolt off Military Highway into Parkview Shopping Center, lug in their broken sets and their their charge cards and camp out in the shop's waiting area.
And things would get ugly.
``Everybody always dreads that Friday before the game. You'll have a customer who you've worked on five or six sets for in the past and they've always paid their bills, a loyal customer. They'll turn into an ogre. These are normal people. Deacons of the church. And they will cuss you out.''
He's got his limits, though, when the front-counter fist-pounding starts, repeat business or not.
``If a customer uses profanity more than the word `damn,' I'll ask them to leave and come back when they're more calm.''
Fat chance. They're not going far till they know they've got the Steelers and Cowboys right in their living room.
Armchair quarterbacks made half-insane by the idea of missing the game sometimes make Davis a last-ditch offer.
``I'll have people say, `Here's this broke TV. What will you give me off on that one for it?''' he said, pointing at an array of used sets of all shapes and sizes lined up on his lobby floor.
If they don't think of that, or if their set goes out right before the coin toss, they've been known to track him down at home.
He doesn't work on weekends. They don't care.
One Super Bowl Sunday a while back a neighbor gave him a shout. Davis grabbed a soldering iron out of his garage and rigged a quick fix that held through the game.
Tonight Davis, 36, will be parked in front of his own 31-inch set, which is in perfect working order. He'll crank up the volume, way, way up.
``I've always liked bigger and better and the boomiest sound,'' he said, snapping forward in his chair, a dreamy grin spreading from one ear to the other. ``I've got a home theater. I've got Bose speakers all around the room, a TV with Dolby pro-logic mode. You punch up ``Stadium'' and you feel and sound like you're there.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot
Chesapeake TV repairman Marvin Davis finds himself under siege every
year at Super Bowl time, when everybody wants a clear picture for
the big game.
by CNB