I’ll tell ya, I don’t HOW I ever existed without my Samsung 46-inch flat screen TV with Samsung SurroundSound System! Absolutely amazing and incredible!

About six months ago, I received an unexpected check for a little over sixteen thousand dollars. Mary Ellen and I are planning to take a vacation to Ireland with some of it, take the oldest grandchild to Disney for her eighth birthday with some of it, sock some of it away for a rainy day…and we also decided to buy a big screen tv with some of it.

So, off we went to Bernie’s Appliances last Saturday. I wasn’t going to be extravagant.  I was going to buy a 42-incher and walk out of the place.

I had done my homework before we went shopping and discovered that Samsung and Sharp were the best for the money, and SONY, believe it or not, was trying to live off of its reputation, and was way down on the list.

Mary and I walked into the store, and we were met immediately by Harvey The Salesman. I told him what I was looking for, and he took me right to the TV’s. Immediately upon seeing them, I decided that a 42-incher was too small. (Imagine that???!!!) And, believe it or not, Harvey talked me out of a 52-inch model. When I told him the size of our tv room, he told me that he thought 52 inches would be too big. He steered me to the 46-inchers instead. (Honest man. The 46 inch models were about five hundred bucks less than the 52-inch ones.)

Next, Harvey started talking about some gobbledygook called pixel “refresh rates”. (Aren’t pixels those little guys who run around making toys at the North Pole?) The cheaper sets had a 60 something-or-other refresh rate.  The better sets had a 120 something-or-other refresh rate. 120 something-or-other refresh rate, huh? I totally didn’t know what that was, but I wanted it!

Next came the SurroundSound system. I never even considered such a thing until Harvey The Salesman helpfully suggested that I need one. (The sound system that comes with the tv’s are all right, but “If you’re going to spend the money for really high quality picture, shouldn’t go a few hundred more for a high quality sound system?

Really?

Then Harvey gave me a demonstration. After listening to the differentce between the factory-installed system and the enchanced system, I turned to Mary Ellen and said, “I NEED one of these!”

We’re talking woofers, sub-woofers, tweeters and watts per channel here. Just like when I was in High School and lusted after my friend’s Harmon Kardon turntable and quatrophonic stereo system! (I wonder how Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks is doing now-a-days?)

No Bose Wave System. $900 is just a bit too much for vibrations. Sorry. I don’t give a damn if it sounds like a symphony orchestra is in my tv room. Not for $1000 when taxes are figured in. The Samsung SurroundSound unit for half the price will do just fine, thank you very much.

Now, for an extra $50, Bernie’s will deliver it. All this and Heaven too!

I was having a hard time controlling my enthusiasm!

Two days later, Mary Ellen called me at work and told me that the system had been delivered. (It’s not called a set anymore; it is now called a system. I mean seriously, who, in their right mind would spend over $2000 for a television SET? Nobody, of course…But an audio and video SYSTEM??? Systems are worth it.)

Mary Ellen told me that Bernie’s idea of “delivering” was just something a tad more than pulling up to the curb at the bottom of the driveway and throwing the packages out onto the front lawn as the truck was still moving.

Actually, they brought the thing into the house, took it out of the boxes (a SYSTEM needs more than on box!), put it up on the bench that we had set for it, plugged it into the wall socket, and left. Nothing else. No hooking it up to the cable. No hooking up the DVD player. No even turning the freaking thing on to make sure that it worked. Nothing.

I spent the rest of the day fretting. I was going to have to go home and work with an ELECTRONIC thing that had wires and ports and jacks and Warp drives and defribulators and God knows WHAT else! I ruined my whole afternoon worrying about this “set-up” thing! I stopped off at the liquor store and bought a twelve-pack of Corona to drown my sorrows in at around midnight while the whole TV system lay in pieces all over the first floor of my house, still not working.

Have I ever told you how much I love Mary Ellen? Well, I do. I love her with my whole heart. When I got home, she had the whole damned thing hooked up! Everything! The television, the cable service, the DVD player, the SurroundSound, the whole damned ball of wax!!!!

I walked into the TV room, sat down on the couch and just stared at the HUGE, 46” diagonal black eye that covered about 1/8 of the wall facing me. It was like a religious experience. My mouth was dry. Without taking my eyes off the screen, I said, “Does it work?”

Mary smiled and clicked the remote and suddenly, there in front of, in High Definition glory, sat Katie Couric! I could see all the lines in her pretty face! That little wart down on her chin. Her nostrils were about six inches wide. (But that’s okay. No nose hairs.) Every time she spoke, the subwoofer kicked it, and her voice was reverberating off my chest.

(DOCTOR JOHN LAPOOK, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT HISTORY OF THE SWINE FLU!!!!)

It took me a minute to figure out that there were three different settings for the SurroundSound System – Theatrical, Music, and News.) With a click of the remote, the Darth Vader voice turned into sweet, middle-aged woman voice of darling Katie that we all know and love.)

I gotta tell ya. This thing is awesome. It truly is! NetFlix movies and Red Sox Baseball games on HD in SurroundSound and 46” across diagonally are totally outrageous! Sorry. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it true.  I love my new TV system!

And it’s not just a guy thing either. Mary Ellen…likes it…too. Just not as much as I do.