The federal government came very close last week to doing a nationwide Emily Litella.

Emily Litella, as you may remember, was the "Saturday Night Live" character played by Gilda Radner who would rail on about an issue until she was told she had completely misheard what was being talked about.

She would then turn to the audience and say, in her reedy, quavering voice, "Never mind."

Well, Congress came a little more than 20 votes short of doing a big "never mind" on the scheduled Feb. 17 switch to digital television.

As we have been told ad nauseam, the nation is scheduled to switch to digital television on that date, and anyone who still receives TV signals over the air on an analog set will not longer get the picture.

If you don't know this by now, either you are deceased or you have been wrapped in a cocoon by a giant space spider for the past two years.

Not only has TechMan and every other newspaper tech and TV writer beaten this to death, but a flood of TV commercials featuring major and minor stars and local news personalities have been driving home the point for a year.

And then there are the endless "crawls" across the bottom of the screen. ("Look dear, there is a crawl across the screen. The local TV station must have declared a weather emergency because half an inch of snow is predicted somewhere in West Virginia. Oh, no, it's just another reminder about the digital television conversion.")

Despite all this, it is estimated that 6.5 million American homes have not yet prepared for the conversion. One could surmise that these people could not possibly be ignorant about the switch if they own a TV and watch it. And if they don't, we need not be concerned about them.

The remainder must be takeout for a space spider.

But perhaps they know about it and cannot afford the conversion.

To deal with this, Congress set up a program to give Americans two coupons worth $40 toward the purchase of digital converter boxes.

One of the concerns of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va, (hmm, Rockefeller, do you think he watches a TV with rabbit ears?) who pushed the delay until June 12 through the Senate, was that the coupon program had burned through its $1.34 billion dollars. The waiting list for coupons has grown to 3 million people.

The federal government has mismanaged a national relief program?

That would be like mismanaging relief for a major American city flattened by a hurricane.

It could never happen.

But apparently it did.

Remember, this is television we're talking about. If this were a digital conversion of America's heart-lung machines, we might be justifiably concerned.

But even if 6 million households lose reception, what is the worst that could happen? They wouldn't know how many pounds the biggest loser shed this week? They wouldn't know the secret ingredient on "Iron Chef?" They wouldn't know the sad details of that house fire in Donora?

After all, by Feb. 17 the Steelers will have been Super Bowl champions for more than two weeks.

So, maybe for the first time ever, TechMan agrees with House Republicans, who spearheaded killing the DTV delay.

But remember there is time for this issue to rise again before Feb. 17, or even before you read this.

I say let's get on with it. Those crawls are driving me crazy.

If you have not prepared for the digital TV conversion, let me remind you of a few simple facts:

If you have cable, fiber optic or satellite TV, forget all about it. You are not affected.

If you get your television over the air, converter boxes cost between $50 and $80, or you can buy a new TV with a digital tuner, which they are all now required to have.

You may need a better antenna, but be aware even with a good antenna, there may be stations you now receive you will not be able to get. The digital signal is not as penetrating and tends to do worse in hilly locations like ours.