The night the TV went blank.......

Toni and I went for a walk.
Carmen was actually home. He read a book....

When we got married, Carmen's engineering group bought us a console TV. It was delivered to our first home---a cute little townhouse in the city--with great fanfare. It was a massive piece of furniture with carved wood sides and a sleek top. The screen itself was as big as you could get them in the 80's. It sat proudly in our little living room amongst the earth-toned furnishings, big hanging ferns and batik artwork. We spent many hours watching MTV on that fancy set. When we moved, that TV came with us. It followed us for 25 years. 25 years. We never had to have it repaired---it always worked when we turned it on. But, Carmen grew tired of it and longed for a bigger, fancier and more modern TV. I, on the other hand, thought it was just fine. My stubborness worked for a few years. But, soon, Carmen wore me down. He said it was time for a big screen, HDTV. And, I said...okay, with a few conditions. It could not be tooo big. It had to be housed in an armoire that had doors and it had to be just the right armoire. Meaning--it had to fit into our decor. With that, Carmen set out on his multi-month just the right TV research project and I set about finding the armoire. After several months and several visits to various electronics stores, Carmen zeroed in on the TV of his dreams. We made pilgrimages to visit it a few times just to make sure it was the one. And, when he was finally convinced it was, he brought it home. My armoire search was not quite as complex. I decided on having one built and I refinished it to my liking. Within a few weeks, our old console TV was out on the street and our brand new TV was tucked away in it's new armoire. Just in time for football season. Carmen basked in the glory of that TV....for a few months. Soon after, he began noticing lines across the picture of his new TV. I never saw them. But, each time we'd watch TV, he'd try to get me to see them..."look, don't you see them, they are right there....looooook!" If people came over to visit, he would have them look for the lines. Some people saw them. Some people didn't. No matter what, he was convinced there was a problem. So, we had a repair guy out--only to learn that it was a rather extensive problem. Carmen was devastated that his perfect TV was not so perfect afterall. Thankfully, it was completely covered under the warranty. After that, Carmen has been convinced his TV will never be the same. Now, every once in awhile, Carmen will panic...thinking that he sees lines again. Sometimes when we go shopping, I catch him standing in the TV section staring at the TVs....watching them intently. He'll call me over and ask.."do you think this is a better picture than ours?" The man has been having serious TV confidence issues for a year now. So, when the TV suddenly stopped working last night....first the sound went and then the picture went....immediately after Carmen had finished watching something on demand....he went into a complete tailspin. In fact, he stayed up past 10 pm (every unusual for him since he is out of the house so early each morning) to try and figure it out. When he could not make heads or tails of the problem, he called the cable company. Now, I have to tell you that Carmen does not make phone calls. Nope. He is not that kind of guy. He leaves the phone calling up to me. But, this was a problem with his TV. So, not only did he stay up way past his bedtime, he also did the unthinkable and made a phone call. According to the cable company, our cable box is not receiving their signal. Which means our cable box is broken and needs replaced. Which means we are without a TV until the weekend. Of course, we have a few other TVs. But, they are scattered about the house. So...we had to do without our main TV last night. It wasn't the worse thing. Not at all. We missed the President's speech. We missed more news on the bailout. We had the chance to clear our heads instead. Toni and I took a walk (and we finally got to visit the newest upscale vintage store uptown...oh how fun...). Carmen read a book. We have no idea what happened in the world for the past 10 hours. But, we're doing fine. Just fine, thank you.