Down-Sizing

Our TV gave up the ghost between Christmas and the New Year. This was the first TV me and Mr. P have ever purchased. Well that lasted a long time, you may ask? But no, it did not, barely 5 years. Up until that point we had always accepted, very gratefully, Mr. P’s parents’ cast-off TV’s. The TV had been going wrong for months, the on-off button was jammed and if anyone’s head appeared in the top half of the scene they looked like the incredible hulk, very green indeed. Also, George (the technophobe German Shepherd) had demolished the remote control, so all in all, the TV was hanging on by its last thread.

Exit 32” TV, to be replaced with the kitchen TV (also kindly donated by Mr. P’s parents). I envisaged a few problems here. Firstly Mr. P and I have separate rooms. He sits in the kitchen of an evening and I take to the living room. Please do not think that he has been banished, because this is not so and I think it would take the incredible hulk himself to banish Mr. P. anywhere (Leo, don’t you know).

Mr. P is quite happy in the kitchen whereby he has a choice of TV or computer and sometimes both at the same time. Except when Manchester United are playing then he really pulls rank and insists that he watches on the ‘big’ telly. Now all us ladies know that men are fixated with size, but I could never understand why I would be ousted from my nest so that he could watch an extra 4” of TV. You see, the TV that used to be in the kitchen is 28”!

Well, I must admit, aesthetically. the 28” was more pleasing, fitting into the fireside alcove very nicely without the 32” big fat bottomed, flat screen sticky-outedness. Unfortunately 3 weeks after this swap-around, 32” + stand are still sitting in the middle of my living room. Why I would need to ask Mr. P to dispose of it is a very perplexing conundrum!

28” obviously did not like Law & Order, Escape to the Country or even Criminal Minds, because it too packed up last Sunday. Enter No. 1 son’s TV, the 17”. Where is 28”, yes you have guessed, Mr. P put this about 2’ in front of my chair which blocks the remote control signal to the Virgin Media box, but makes a very useful foot stool. Now, as I have a prolapsed disc, I did ask Mr. P to move this after a couple of days assuming that even he could see there was some definite overcrowding going on – which he did and 28” now sits on the floor about one foot from where he moved it from.

It must be said, I have never been more pleased that we are skint, because I know Mr. P has his eye on a 50” monstrosity and, of course, that would mean that we would have to share a TV, a room and we all know where that leads, yes, compromise. Such a horrible word, such a let-down word, such a grey, insipid, halfway word!

There is a 12” portable waiting in the wings, but is there enough floor space for 17” too, would a 12” seem palatable to technophobe George, would I even be able to see it (I

suppose Mr. P might be persuaded to move 28” back and then I could rest it on the top) or should I get busy crocheting some doilies to adorn all my new free standing object d’art? Find out in the next thrilling episode of the TV Graveyard saga!