Universe Remote/Jeremy/Try to read more of the manual first

Absolutely none of these buttons are labeled. No matter how adventurous you might be, altering the universe with absolutely no idea of what you're doing sounds like a very bad idea. You steel yourself to continue reading the most boring thing that you have ever come across. If it simply had an index or table of contents; maybe it would have made things more tolerable. This book had neither. You push your way through the introduction, attempting to skim it as much as you can. You feel you're finally getting to some actual information, when the text suddenly changes topic mid sentence into an aside about broccoli that is supposed to be some kind of example for a feature that the book hasn't even revealed yet. Muddling on, you find yourself nodding off over and over again.

After about a half hour of this (that feels more like a decade) you finally get to a section on "initializing the remote". According to the seven pages of text that the information is spread across; you press your thumb firmly on the center button until it beeps, then it is initialized for you; and you will be able to see the button labels. You press your thumb firmly on the button, and feel a sharp pain in your thumb.

"Oww!" you exclaim, more out of surprise than pain as it was a small prick. The Narrator says: That's what she said.

"Be quiet," says Hank without looking up from his phone, "I'm trying to play my game."

"Sorry bro," you say as you pick the remote back up. You press your thumb to the center button one more, preparing yourself for the small cut . . . but it never happens. Shortly thereafter, there is a burning sensation; but you keep holding the remote. Then there is a freezing sensation; but you keep pressure applied. Finally there is a long dull period where you start to wonder if you missed the beep. About thirty seconds after you are certain you must have missed the beep; the remote beeps. Lighted words suddenly appear above the buttons . . . above as in directly above the buttons . . . actually floating over the top of them.

In any case the button on which you currently have your thumb pressed very clearly says "Home" (above your thumb of all things) to the left of the Home button is a triangular button labeled "Previous" and to the right an opposing button labeled "Next". Below the Home button is another triangular button that says "Undo"; despite the fact that your thumb is obscuring the button currently. Above the home button is yet another triangular button that says "Repeat". Above this whole set are six round buttons in a semicircle. From left to right they read: "Change", "Move", "Exchange", "Delete", "Copy", and "Paste". Currently the Change button is lighted by some form of back-lighting. To either side of the center Home button array is another circular button. The one on the left has a minus sign, and the one on the left has a plus sign. Below all this is a rather familiar set of playback controls: Rewind, Pause, Record, Play, and Fast Forward. Below this is what appears to be a number pad; but neither the playback controls nor the number pad has labels floating over them. Below all of this the words "Environment Mode" float above the remote itself.

Do you press a labeled button?

• press "Change"
• press "Move"
• press "Exchange"
• press "Delete"
• press "Repeat"
• press "Previous"
• press "Next"
• press "Undo"
• press Minus
• press Plus

Or do you press a playback button?

• press Rewind
• press Pause
• press Record
• press Play
• press Fast Forward

Or do you press a numpad button?

• press #
• press 0
• press *
• press 1
• press 2
• press 3
• press 4
• press 5
• press 6
• press 7
• press 8
• press 9

Or do you do something else?

• Read even more of the manual first
• Wait until everyone else gets home