By Kerri Havnen Gordon
Looks like the honeymoon may be short-lived. We had bought our new TV only a month before. It’s a beauty, with a wide, flat plasma screen measuring a whopping 50 inches. A commanding presence, the television sits on its throne and beckons all who enter our family room. When it comes to life, we gaze in wide-eyed rapture at the high-definition image.
“Look at that close-up,” I said to my husband during the “Survivor” finale. “Jeff Probst’s head actually looks life-size.” With great enthusiasm, my husband replied, “Look, you can see the pores on his face.” Talk about your reality TV.
When we designed the family room during our recent remodel, a new 50-inch TV was forefront in the plans. My husband calculated the optimal viewing distance from a TV of this size, and I bought a “media cabinet” with ample opening for the mammoth screen. A new sectional couch was aimed at the shrine and, heaven help us, we even installed surround sound. The only thing left was to actually choose a TV worthy of the room we had created for it.
This, of course, involved countless trips to multiple electronics stores, where frothing salesmen - yes, they were all men - waxed poetic about whichever TVs were their personal favorites. Usually our teenaged sons accompanied their dad on these outings. Unlike me, they can tolerate and even embrace the dizzying array of data necessary to narrow the choices.
When I tagged along, we all knew what my job was. I would earnestly walk from TV to TV and after about four minutes, I’d point and say to my husband, “I like that one.” Then I’d plop down in one of those comfy chairs in front of the biggest, baddest TV in the store and watch polar bears frolic.
Every once in a while I heard my husband and the salesmen blathering on about aspect ratios, dot pitch, built-in tuners, viewing angles, high def, etc. Numbers and acronyms were also favored conversations: LCD, HDMI, DLP, 1080i, 720p.
It bored me.
But when my husband and older son brought home the chosen TV and plugged that baby in, I finally understood what all the fuss was about. Suddenly our house was the place when the teens converged to watch the World Cup. We clearly had the best TV in the land, and we reveled in it.
All was fine until my husband mentioned that Panasonic now has a 60-inch plasma. I thought I detected a slight wistful tone in his voice, which I ignored.
This morning while reading the paper, he called out, “Panasonic is coming out with a 103-inch plasma! That’s the equivalent of four 50-inch TVs.” I wasn’t quite sure how you get four 50-inch TVs in one 103-inch TV, and I didn’t want to ask because my husband would tell me.
Within moments of his explanation, I would be nodding and smiling and praying that he would please stop before I wither and die. All I know is that if the guys in my house brought home a 103-inch television, we’d have to blast out the back wall of the room to get far enough away from the thing. I’d say to my husband, “It’s me or the TV. Which is it?” I’m afraid he’d pick the TV.
Televisions at our house last a good decade, just like our automobiles, so I expect to repeat the buying process again in about 2016. By then, our new, sparkling 50-inch TV will be old news, eclipsed by new technologies that will make my husband salivate. And off to the store we will go.
