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Research is sketchy on who or what transcribes TV's closed captions for the hearing impaired. I think I know why: Neither human nor artificial intelligence wants the blame for all of the blunders. My hat's off to the hearing impaired. I can easily relate to their frustrations, even though no one in my household is deaf. With the possible exception of my inflatable woman.

Therefore, with near perfect hearing, some people would probably think me daft for setting up our TV for a feature reserved expressly for the hearing impaired. Daft? Definitely. But my rationale for setting up the captions reeks legit. It's because I like to watch TV while waiting for the tech-support guys from India to come back on the phone line. You know? To walk me through whatever computerized gadget I can't navigate. News flash: I'm not overly literate. I need lots of help operating any offsprings of modern technology.

Because of their evil nature, the tech people love to keep me on hold. Interminably. During those dull intervals, both writing and reading become impossible. Who can concentrate? Every 15 seconds, the tech service insists upon repeating its annoying recorded assurance that it considers my call "very important." And with all that static blather, who can hear TV dialogue?

So, I got the bright idea of muting the TV and reading the closed captions while I wait. Surprise! Very few of the captions comprise the remotest semblance of sense. I figured out why. One murky morning, I decided to perform an experiment. I left the TV sound turned up while the closed caption feature transcribed the spoken words. My God! What it doesn't misinterpret, it omits altogether.

Like a Puritan, the closed caption feature sheepishly bleeps out words like "vagina" and "scrotum." Evidently, those words should be reserved only for those of us who can hear. However, the system gets fooled on occasion and transcribes words like "dildo." Of course, it spells the word "Bill Toe," leaving deaf people under the impression that an enigmatic man named Bill Toe could be a horny person's best buddy.

Once a character was chatting about her multilingual friend. The closed caption read: "Flora travels the world. She's affluent in several languages." (I'll bet she is at that). Later, a news anchor character announced how a bomb scare had prompted authorities to evaporate the Arts and Sinuses Building. (Hate when that happens).

Recently, the contraption stalled on the word "sexual," letting the word linger in lonely limbo on the screen for several seconds. Then, suddenly, it spat out the rest of the sentence, along with several other paragraphs with such a frantic rapidity that even a world-class speed reader would be lost. By that point, being a certified neurotic who's deeply in love with a testy inflatable woman, I began screaming: "Sexual what? Sexual who? Sexual where? Sexual how?"

Time after time, after the frustrations of closed captions have driven me to the edge of insanity, finally out of India comes a live voice over my speaker phone, asking how she can help. I start to cry. I can't remember why I even called tech support. Why didn't I save a step and simply call my shrink instead? My shrink? Oh, that's right: he's stopped taking my calls eons ago.

The real tragedy was discovering that I'm totally unable to shut down the contemptible closed caption feature on my TV. And no one will help. No one. For some reason, most of the tech people have blacklisted me. Thus, hence and therefore, every show I watch includes closed captions cluttering up the screen. Today, I watched a scene occurring in an office setting.

A secretary spoke: "Death is on the way into your office," the caption read. The door burst open and a short, red-headed young woman sprang into the room and said: "Hi, I'm Beth."

Silly me. I was expecting to see a tall guy with a cycle.

- Steve Eskew

Retired businessman Steve Eskew received master's degrees in dramatic arts and communication studies from the University of Nebraska at Omaha after he turned 50. After one of his professors asked him to write a theater column, he began a career as a journalist at The Daily Nonpareil in Council Bluffs, Iowa. This led to hundreds of publications in a number of newspapers, most of which appear on his website, eskewtotherescue.com.