Santa and Mrs. Claus

When I told Mrs. Claus that my television was broken, you would have thought I told her I was being evicted. Before I even finished talking about trying to find a repair person, Mrs. Claus announced that Santa would be getting me a new one. Really? Now... Mrs. Claus just made Santa reimburse me for my airline ticket--which he grumbled about--Santa thinks I'm too old for gifts, especially since I have a job. But what Mrs. Claus says...goes. I have helped Santa paint. I have helped Santa lay down a new wood laminate floor. All because Mrs. Claus said make it so. I have seen Santa hang his head on Christmas eve and go out for a gallon of milk, a quart of oysters, a dozen eggs...Because I told Mrs. Claus I needed it to cook whatever it was she put on her holiday menu. Yep. Santa had to jump to it. He's lucky he didn't have a cell phone or Mrs. Claus would have called him while he was out to get more things that she thought of while he was away. And when he got back, Santa dare not go to bed before he started Mrs. Claus' pot of gumbo.

Even though The Clauses are going to give me the money, I still thought it would be unnecessarily extravagant for me to get a fancy TV. After a lot of internet searching, I figured out the features I should look for and the size I was comfortable with and decided on a price I was willing to pay. I headed out to Big Box Retailer in New Jersey--because it's too hard to park in Manhattan and because I wanted to take the drive. Sigh. Even though I lived in New Jersey for four years, I still managed to get lost...for like an hour. But finally I got there.

Even with a list, I nearly got pulled into the vortex. There were so many TV's! I'm so glad I did some research first. I was already aware of the change from analog to digital that will take place in 2009, but I was not at all clear about the alphabet soup--SDTV, EDTV, HDTV, CRT, LCD--sheesh. I had some minimum specs for resolution so I ruled out about six sets right away. Then there were three pathetic sets nobody was interested in--they were not up-to-par technically and therefore 'not worth buying-- and they were HEAVY. Everyone was crowded on the opposite end of the display aisle. When I got there, I found one of the models on my list...but right next to it was a larger version from the same manufacturer. Ay caramba! Unfortunately, the larger one was sold out. Darn it. It would have been worth the extra money. But that meant I was distracted by the larger sets. I put the model on my list in the cart, but I started thinking how much more I would be willing to pay for a larger set. I found a set that's about as big as I could carry or need in my apartment, but it was twice the price of the one on my list. In the end, I stuck with my budget and got the set on my list. It was reduced an additional $25 too! So at the end of the day, the amount I spent on the TV could be deducted from my cash allowance for this month--especially since I'll be spending part of the month eating at the Clauses. So now I'm catching up on Oprah, cool. Did y'all see the show with the hoarders?!