Who Are All These People with Five Foot Long TV's?


TwoMicroscopes, originally uploaded by carolsLittleWorld.

By now you probably know all about my battle with the great Gods of Television, how my TiVo has blown up and I’ve been left watching nothing but late night re-runs and odd infommercials at strange hours of the day and night.

What you don’t know is that yesterday, I started fixing all of that. I got up early, I got the newspaper, I sat down with my reading glasses (oye!) and I went to work. I started scouring ads and looking for bargains. “Oh look, they have a 46 inch one on sale over here and this one comes with a free Blue Ray player.” I circled. I added. I shopped. It was long, it was grueling and I *so* wanted to read the funnies instead but I somehow muddled through and picked out a few sets that I thought were reasonably priced, on sale, and well, suitable for my living room.

Next, we went to the store. Since I have but a small, humble hatchback, I opted to drive my parent’s car, a small SUV actually, because I thought that the TV would be too big to fit in my hatchback. I went to the electronics store, fliers in tow, hoping to secure my bargain.

All I can say is Wow! I never knew TV sets were so *big.* Huge is more like it. When did TV sets get the size of an entire room? It’s amazing. It’s mind blowing. They had 68 inch televisions there. Who are these people who buy 68 inch televisions? Are they blind? Or do they like to watch from the driveway? Do you really need to see your television set from three city blocks away? Geesh.

I started in the 30 inch TV’s and I thought those were about the right size. The salesman kept looking at me like I was from mars. “I don’t want something big” I kept telling him. “The number one complaint, that people have, when they return TV’s,” he said to me, “is size. They are too small. Everybody wants them bigger.” Bigger? Bigger? So 68 inches is not big enough? What the heck?!? I’m amazed. I’m stunned. Maybe I’m just not watching it right?

I really wanted a 35 inch model but they didn’t have many to select from. I wound up checking out the newer LED TV’s and found one that was only slightly ginormous and was on sale. It was 40 inches, so I would up getting a Samsung 40 inch LED TV. It barely fit in the car. Luckily, I didn’t have to ride with my butt sticking out the window the way I did when we got the workbench.

I got it home and placed it in the room. It’s big, I tell you. It’s almost too big for my room and I have a big living room. Really. It’s 27 feet long in one direction, since it’s together with my dining room. I’m now convinced you could watch this TV, this new, “humbly sized” TV from orbit, it’s that large.

So now I want to know, I really want to know, who are these people who buy all of these 68 inch televisions? What do they do with them? Do they really watch that much TV? I mean, seriously, that’s a lot of television. I can’t watch that much TV. My eyes would grow tired and weak, seriously, they would.

As we were leaving the store, the electronics store that sells all the giant nearly 70 inches of television, I noticed something else. My favorite store, located in the same shopping center was going out of business. This other store, called World Market, sells food from around the world and small trinkets from afar. I couldn’t help but try to rationalize this-I mean, here we have a store that sells global foodstuffs, going out of business on account of the economy and yet the electronics store, the one that sells giant nearly 70 inch TV sets was filled with people, even, yes, in this economy. I mean, what does that come down to? People are starving and yet still buying giant TV’s? I just doesn’t make any sense to me.

But, you know, I have a new TV now. So now I have this giant, honking new set that glows all pretty, has fancy glass all around it, and still features 300 channels with nothing much on. And I do really want to meet somebody who can justify having 70 inches of television, what, when there are places like Haiti in the world, though, really, that’s not somebody I’m in all that much of a hurry to meet. Sorry to be a downer on you this morning but, man, something here just doesn’t sound right. Am I missing something? Is there really a genuine need for somebody to have a giant TV set that’s five feet long? I mean, I know some people smaller than that and, frankly, I’d rather look at them all day that what’s typically on television. No, this just does not compute in oh so many ways and really falls into the category of “somebody please explain” in more ways that I can count.

Until next time…

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3 Comments

  1. mythopolis
    Author
    February 15, 2010 / 3:56 pm

    In answer to the question…I don't know why people want the big sets. A lot of jocks, I think seem to lust for huge screens for watching football, etc. In fact, right before the super-bowl rental places are swamped with requests for a monster tv.
    Looking at the flip side…who can say what the 'proper' size of a tv should be? I like a screen that, when you are looking at a close-up of a talking head, the person's head is about the same size as mine!

  2. Kala
    Author
    February 16, 2010 / 5:39 am

    I seriously don't understand why people need huge TV screens – I mean what size are the rooms in their homes?

    P.S. I am a rare bird in that I do not own a television set.

  3. Carol
    Author
    February 16, 2010 / 1:56 pm

    I don't get it. I just don't get it. I'd much rather have a smaller more intimate set personally. I want to feel like I'm gazing into another world, peering into something, not that it's taken over my entire house.

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