Last Wednesday we were sitting in the living room watching an interesting special (perhaps Dateline?) on those folks who have more than one wife. Yeah mighty interesting that story and as it started to get more interesting, our tv shut off.  Thinking it was just a fluke, we popped it back on and started watching again.  Moments later it shut off again. 

And at that moment, we both looked at each other and recalled the day we took this tv home from the store and plugged it in and sat down to gawk at all the high-definition goodness.  Only to have it shut off minutes later.  We ended up returning that tv and the store replaced it with this one.  2 years and 2 months later, same exact issue.

I was annoyed immediately, thinking about the money we would have to pay to get it fixed. 

But wait, Sean remembered we got the extended service plan, which covered in-home service.  Score!

We called and they came to take the tv away Friday morning.  When they arrived, the good little tv decided to make-believe it was feeling just fine and it would not go off no matter how long and awkardly the 4 of us stood watching it.  So, the 2 service guys said they had to “take it in” and off they went while Sean wept in the corner.  You could feel the emptiness in the room.  And the gaping whole in the middle of the tv stand.  It was just so wrong. 

However, we still have our tv in the bedroom.  Which isn’t anything special but it works.  That’s special enough.  We’ve been able to still watch Big Brother and The 4400.  But it is also pretty clear that, even for just three days, we’ve spent less time watching tv and more time doing stuff like playing board games, going for walks and having fun.

This whole tv issue has paid off in more ways than I ever thought it would.