Coming soon to Den near us…

A new TV.

Yes, that’s right! The husband and I talked it over (for all of about eight seconds) and decided that we just really didn’t want to do without it. Could, but won’t. So there, nyah-nyah. In which spirit, the new TV will be delivered today.

This is what I looked at first, but obviously – ha! Hahahaha! $2500 for a TV! {snicker, snort} We love the Boob Tube enough to decide we don’t want to do without it, but we don’t love it that much.

But I did open the coffers enough for this one. It’s a considerable improvement over the old one for us. Which in turn was a great improvement over our previous television, which was, uh, well…remember rabbit ears? Yeah. That was our TV before the one that just went “pop-fizz-stink”. I think it was something like a 5 or 6 inch screen. No wonder I need glasses today…

In the process of buying a TV, I learned some interesting facts, which I will now share with you.

The closest TV repair service is 35.8 miles from my house. They don’t do service calls, didn’t really want to bother with anything less than a Ginormous model, and they guarantee their work for 30 days. After that, you’re on your own. When I described the problem, they asked me how old the set was. Seven years, I replied, in aggrieved tones, feeling betrayed by an appliance that new just going “pop-crack-stink” on me. Then they laughed and said, “Just buy a new one! A set that old, it’s just going to keep breaking…”

Now, when I was a kid, we had the same TV for about 15 years. It was just barely able to display color, that’s how old it was. I think it was repaired, uh, once? Maybe twice? And the guy came to our house, and fiddled with things, and fixed it.

There was a guy here in town, but he didn’t fix, you know, television sets. He only fixes those Great Big Ginormous sets that actually come with your house. The rear-projecting ones in the modern McMansion’s home theatre. OK, so, I don’t have a home theatre. I have a playroom / TV room. In fact, the bottom of my entertainment unit has drawers that are used not for movies but for toy storage. No home theatre. Or theater, for that matter. Although we did get a lovely home theatre sound system for Christmas, tra-la, tra-la.

And he, too, seemed to think that seven years was old, especially for a cute little thing like our old Philips.

Huh. Who knew?

I then researched washers and dryers and found that there is hope! Because the average lifespan for a washer is 7-12 years. My washer is almost eight years old now! So with any luck, it will suddenly yak up a hairball and die, and I’ll be able to say, “Oh, DARN the luck! Guess I’ll just have to rush down to Sears and get that big old Kenmore I’ve been wanting…”