New TV

Yesterday was a day that my husband and I actually got to spend together. It's a rare occurrence, and thus when it happens, magical things also happen.

I suddenly became very inspired to create a home office for myself despite this being my last semester of school before moving across the province. This home office will only be in use for a maximum of 4 months. Yet, I was fiercely inspired so I went to the usual district and looked through Value Village and the Thrift Store looking for a desk/table/flat surface to begin my remodel. Alas I found nothing. So I asked a clerk to please check in the back room for a desk just in case they got one within the past few minutes. She did and upon returning empty handed, referred me to the BRAND NEW Goodwill down the street.

There had been a Goodwill in my area for several months now without me knowing. I rushed back home to tell my husband that we needed to go there instantly. We did and despite it being a relatively large Goodwill, with lots of other interesting things, there was nothing I could use for my home office.

There were, however, TVs. Now, our current tv technically works, but it is from about the mid 1980s and extremely frustrating when words pop up and you can't read them because the TV is so blurry. We saw one TV that was a good size and an ok price. I was hesitant because we couldn't really tell if it would be an improvement until we got it home and hooked it up, and by then it's non-returnable.

"You guys thinking about buying that TV?" A stranger had approached us. No doubt a student, mid to late 20s, likely high.
"Yeah," we said uncertainly.
"Do you want a free TV? I live just across the street and I'm moving so I need to get rid of it."

We pondered the offer and concluded that a free TV is far less of a gamble than a $10 TV, so we decided to take him up on his offer.

Turns out he did live across the street. He lived in a house, the driveway of which was situated in the middle of a T-intersection of the two busiest roads in all of Guelph. It was quite the adventure simply driving there. So we get the TV, and it's smaller than we would have liked, but free so we didn't complain. A roommate was there with the strange student and seemed to be considerably more inebriated, and both were giggling.

When we got back home, we disinfected every surface of the TV because we're a little worried about germs, especially considering the source, and we turned it on in the hopes that if Bed Bugs had crawled up in the nooks and crannies, they'd die of the heat. Once it was all hooked up and programmed, the difference was amazing. We could read words on it! The picture was clear! Red things didn't bleed into the rest of the picture and white things didn't glow. It was a glorious victory, and yet...it was considerably smaller than our old TV, and also than the TV we were looking at in Goodwill.

We decided that we'd go back to Goodwill and get the other TV too. The small one could be put in our bedroom for easy snuggling during movies. Except, when we got there, the TV had sold! Dissappointed, we went back home.

Then a thought crossed our minds. What if those guys weren't moving, but in fact were dumping their old TV on us so they could get the new, big TV?

Hmmmm.