White glove delivery

Well, Tad and I have a new television.  We were talking for months about throwing away our television, and now we suddenly have a new one. I have no idea how this happened.

It has been a debacle from start to finish. But now it is there. And set up. And pretty nice.

It started when we went to Best Buy. We went straight to the flat screens when we got there and I pointed to the least expensive one.  

"Get that one." I said.

"Well..." Tad said slowly, "Look at that one ($239) compared to that one ($399).  See how different the picture quality is?"

"Yeah, but when we get it home, there won't be another TV next to it so we'll never know that there's one with better quality!"

Tad understood my logic, but didn't necessarily agree with it.

So I hung with the kids and left Tad in charge of picking a TV. This was not going to be the quick in-out I anticipated.  I should have known.  The man stands in the tea aisle at the grocery store contemplating which tea to buy for twenty minutes so you can imagine how long he might take picking out an expensive piece of electronics.  We were at Best Buy for 70 minutes and left without a TV.

After lots of hours of research, he finally chose and ordered one on Amazon (We had a gift certificate from my parents) white glove delivery.

I imagined white glove delivery as two men in tuxedos, towels draped over their arms, coming in all fancy-like asking "Where shall we place your television, madame".  They would shine it up with a clean handkerchief and offer to brew me some tea before they left.  Tad told me white glove delivery is that they deliver, unpack, set up, and haul away debris.  No tuxedos, but still pretty fancy.

So when the TV came, I was ready. But he just asked me where to put the box, put it down and left. 

Whaaa???

Perhaps I should have been more assertive.  "Where are the white gloves?!" I should have demanded.  But he seemed in such a hurry, and after I signed, he left.

That night, Tad and I tried to understand how to put the stupid thing on its stand and got irritated with each other, the children clamoring for attention and us not giving it properly.  (Tad was annoyed with me--rightfully so, says my mom--because I didn't request the unpacking and set up that was supposed to happen.  I was annoyed with him because I want him to see merriment in putting things together, but he usually is very serious about it--my mom saw my point too)  I always think of the time my mom and I were trying to move a heavy table down into the basement and got the giggles.  "Don't make me laugh!" she cried, weakened and we both collapsed on the basement stairs, in a fit of laughter, unable to move with the weight of the table above us.  Why can't Tad get the giggles with me, I ask you?!!!  But, I digress.  During this arduous process, I was trying to make dinner in between holding up this enormous TV and Tad trying to make sense of the wordless instructions....  

"I still love you."  Tad said, "Even though I'm really annoyed with you."

"Hmph." I hmphed.  "I'm annoyed with you too."

"I know." Tad smiled.

We called over our neighbor Brian who has saved us from the following (but not limited to): a broken furnace, pine cones in our heat duct, a basement flood, and now, a TV assembly.  He helped Tad and it was together immediately. 

"What would we do without you?" I asked Brian.

"I don't know." He grinned.

Well, its done. It's put together. And it gives us not only TV but Netflix, Pandora, Youtube and lots lots more.  It's pretty cool.  But man alive, it was hard to get to this point.

So much for the white gloves.