The End is Here!!

 

Well, the end of the year, not to be too melodramatic! And good-bye 2021!!

Sorry but maybe it IS the end of civilization as we have known it. I attempted to buy Bob a new TV for Christmas. Here's our old TV: 

Probably a lovely set in it's day but it's got a gigantic back that sticks out a good 18" and it doesn't have a very large picture area. It's old! And the modem that we require to allow the TV to "talk" to the dvd player needs a firm whack every few minutes to keep it running. (*1) We decided we needed a new TV.

 So I purchased what looked to me to be a huge step up; like 32" (diagonal) screen. And in all fairness, I'd done a ton of research and determined the brand and approximate size but was utterly intimidated and bowled over by all the enormous screens on view at the store. I felt like I'd crawled out from under a rock. I quickly selected my 32" set and fled the store.

I presented it to Bob on Christmas and we were both excited at the prospect of watching TV while lying in bed and feeling all luxurious and up-to-date. But somehow, I had misgivings when we brought the TV upstairs. It looked less huge; in fact, I thought it looked small. We debated for a while and finally agreed. We'd go one size up.

(Another consideration is this lovely sculpture that resides on top of the TV cabinet. The cabinet needs to accommodate TV and sculpture. Then we to arrived at wall mounting the TV and put the sculpture on another surface...)

So we went to the store- for us a still unusual excursion as COVID has kept us close to home and away from "the public"- and return the new but too small TV. We scouted the rear of the big box store, found the bigger TVs and instead of the 40", I see Bob's eyes go wide and he says, "That's the perfect size!" pointing at a 43" model. So we truly did graduate from old set to 32" all the way up to 43". (*2) The punchline is that they had two of these behemoths in stock, but the boxes were water damaged and we didn't want to take a chance on a defective TV and another return trip. I finally ordered the 43" on-line.

So we're awaiting delivery of the new member of our household. I alluded to the end being near and part of me is afraid of the novelty of a giant screen. Will it become so seductive as to reduce the time we spend reading? Will we become "like everyone else", glued to a huge screen and watching endless hours of mindless dreck? I fear for our future! Oh well, welcome to 2022!

(*1) We tried to purchase a new modem-thing and were laughed out of BestBuy and WalMart. How's that for humiliation?!? 

(*2) And yes, there are far gigantic-er tVs out there. 65", 75"... we'd have to get a bigger wall to make space for these "home theaters". And neither one of us wants our lives dominated by a TV that big!