And The Lights Went Out

For years we’d had a TV in the kitchen and, since we spend a lot of time there, it’s the one that’s on the most. The TV is dying, not quite gone yet but I don’t hold out much hope for it. We turn it on and it plays for fifteen or twenty seconds and then turns itself off. Chris says it’s giving up because of our viewing choices. I disagree. We watch quality television. We watch early morning news and weather while we wait for the coffee’s caffeine to kick in. We watch the evening news while cooking supper and it had good reception for shows on PBS. Where the TV would really shine, through, was on old sitcom reruns like Seinfeld or Cheers. It would seem to sit straighter on the counter, the picture would get sharper. It got even better with the game shows. The TV would actually elongate the picture to follow Vanna White as she pointed at empty boxes and have letters magically appear on the Wheel of Fortune and you could almost hear the TV boo the Banker on Deal or No Deal. The TV seemed to be emotionally involved with game shows. It started shutting itself down during an episode of Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader. We’d gotten through most of the questions but I think the suspense got to be too much for an aged TV.

The TV is still on the counter, still plugged in. I’m viewing this as a form of life support. I check its vital signs a couple of times a day to see if it will do more than flicker for fifteen or twenty seconds. So far it hasn’t and I’m thinking it’s time to pull the plug. We’ll have a little service before we take it in a procession to the hazard recycling center. We’ll comfort ourselves with the thought that it had a good life. There's a little mystery, too. We'll never know what that last Fifth Grader question was that put the TV over the edge. We're wondering if, maybe, we could have answered it.