In passing I believe I mentioned the fact that we got a new television for Christmas. It was going to have to be a gift from Santa, because over the last year I have firmly said, no, we don't need a new one. With great frequency, Mark would steer me in the direction of checking out the new TVs in Target, Best Buy, WalMart, any site online that showcases big ole screens to watch nothing in particular on. I was always unimpressed, and stood on solid ground that we did not need a new one.
He would desperately try to wow me with screen-size information: That's 582 inches. Can you imagine movies on that? He would attempt to woo me with the clarity of the screen, including the health angle. I don't even think our screen picture is good for our eyes anymore.
I'm sure all this is true, but all I saw was a morbidly large screen with a terminally huge price tag to go with a piece of equipment that was going to pretty much be used for watching PBS and reruns of Seinfeld. I wasn't buying the argument, or the television.
Until we started to experience an identifiable, non-remediable problem. Every time we clicked the On Button on the TV or remote, nothing would happen. As a matter of fact, the only way we could actually get the show to appear on the less than satisfactorily sized screen, we had to push the On button, repeatedly. It essentially needed time to warm up, it was that aged. And unlike wine or cheese, this type of aging was not going to improve with time. No, we were going to get to the point of having to hit the On button over and over and over, for at least ten minutes before anything would pop up. And when Cat in the Hat or Modern Family or football would finally appear, it would just as quickly go away, and we would have to start the process all over again. By the end of our time with our TV, it was taking a good twenty, twenty-five minutes to turn on.
And I promise you this, if it wasn't the sheer frustration of the maddening series of actions it took to watch a show that got my tune a' changing about a new TV, it was Heath's reaction each and every time this happened. He would shout in disgust, throw his body on the ground, and make a noise that has no words to describe it. It's beyond the worse whine you can imagine, with animalistic, guttural exasperation.
I will say we, both Heath and I, learned to use our words about our annoyance. Silly TV, we would say, shaking our heads with faint smiles of bemusement, clicking the On button to the point of Carpal Tunnel of the thumb. It was actually an excellent exercise in demonstrating a calm reaction for Heath, as I was most definitely faking it. What I really wanted to do was fling the remote as hard as I could at the screen and unleash a long stream of expletives at a volume audible to my neighbors.
So when Heath let the cat out of the bag three days before Christmas that Mark had purchased a TV for us, I had two competing thoughts. 1) How much did it cost? And 2) Thank God.
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