If You Buy a Mouse a Cookie

For those of you who are parents I am sure that you are familiar with the Laura Joffe Numeroff book titled If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. In the story a young child gives a mouse a cookie. However, after you give the mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass a milk. And then it goes on an on about what he'll need next as a result of the previous item. This story is true to life.

My wife and I have been watching television on our 300 pound 32 inch RCA cathode ray television since we bought it back in 1999. To accompany our young dinosaur we purchased a mission-style oak entertainment cabinet for many dollars.

Fast forward 11 years. I have been perusing the advertisements looking for a new television. Just out of curiosity, of course. I'm no tech gadget kind of guy, so I wasn't quite sure what I should be looking for. LCD or LED or plasma? 46" or 47"? 120hz or 60hz? Fortunately my friends on Facebook were there to lead the way, except for one poor soul who was my classmate in private school 24 years ago. He recommended a 13" Westinghouse with the handle on top.

I had decided on getting a 47". They were about $700-$900. That seemed to be about what I wanted to spend for a new television. Then my wife got involved. We visited Best Buy. We visited BJ's Wholesale club. Not being one to tolerate hours of reading reviews, I let her do the legwork. Finally she tells me that she wants to go visit the Big Screen Store in Westminster.

We rally the kids and head up there. We are greeted by a young man named Chris who appeared to be out of high school by about 45 minutes. Spiderman is playing on all of the televisions, which I'm not sure was appropriate given that it is Rated PG-13. But if I could plop them down on those leather chairs to watch the movie while the missus and I shopped then all the better.

Chris showed us the differences between some of the televisions and clearly explained what our expectations should be. He then showed us a Mitsubishi with 16 speaker built-in multi-directional surround sound. He first showed us what it was like with 2-speaker sound. Not too bad. Then he turned on the 16 speaker sound. Holy mother of decibels!!! After I picked myself up off of the floor he says, "but if you're going to spend $XXX on this 47", then you might as well spend $200 more and get this 52". My wife was sold. "This is what we're getting!"

What a role reversal. The woman is telling the man that we are getting the phat-jammin television. Don't get me wrong. I loved it. But the money! Fortunately, slightly-post-pubescent Chris informed us that we could get 18 months no finance charges on a new Big Screen Store credit card. Sounded good to me! Plus it's a 3 year warranty and life-time tech support.

So Chris tells us that the television will be delivered next Wednesday (the week leading up to the Super Bowl). He asks us how we plan on mounting the television. I was set on getting a mission-style credenza to replace our Godzilla entertainment center. My wife disagreed. She wanted to mount it on the wall - above the fire place. Of course, this will prevent us from using the fire place. So we buy a mounting kid.

Another friend then informs us that since we're getting an HD TV, we need to upgrade our cable service to HD. What? So we had to get a new box. Another friend informs me - 'if you upgrade you're cable box, you'll need to get an HDMI cord. What? Another friend informs me - 'if you upgrade to HD, you'll need to get a Blue-Ray player to take advantage of the HD capabilities. What? All I wanted was a cookie!

The television finally arrives on Wednesday and the Eludius family officially enters the 21st century. We haven't buried the cords so they are still draped over the sides of the fireplace. Wii is a little interesting since the television is so high. The response time is slightly delayed thus rendering my old-bone abilities useless against other finely crafted Mii characters.

Two weeks later we still do not have a Blue-Ray player, but my wife is still shopping around. We still don't have an HDMI-compatible cable box because Comcast refuses to get more. Instead they are providing their customers with inferior composite cable boxes. But we'll call them every week until we get one. And once we have that, I'll get a glass of milk.