I’d been away on business for several days, leaving Carol to her own devices. Little did I know, our living room TV had a surprise waiting for me.
After unpacking my severely over-packed car, I settled into my favorite spot on the couch with Loki, only to notice something odd about the TV. The screen seemed … off. Only two-thirds of the picture was visible. The right side of the screen was perfectly fine, but the left side was just a mysterious shadow. My first thought was, of course, the TV was broken. But my second thought was, how had Carol not noticed this?
“Uh, honey, do you see anything wrong with the TV?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral.
Carol glanced at the screen, her face the picture of contentment. “Nope! It’s been working just fine all week. No blips or freezing.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “You don’t think there’s something … missing?”
Carol squinted at the TV. “I don’t know what you mean. Everything looks perfectly normal to me. There’s just a shadow because the blinds are all open.”
“But the left side of the screen is a complete shadow – you can’t even see the HULU menu. We’re only seeing half of the picture!”
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Oh, that. You’d have to close all the blinds to keep the sun off the screen. Sure, it’s hard to find shows without the menu, but you just figure it out after a while.” I could hardly believe my ears – she’d been watching TV for at least 4 days on half a screen and didn’t think it had anything to do with the TV.
“It was kind of fun,” Carol continued. It made me use my imagination to fill in the blanks. Like, in a detective show, I figured the killer was hiding in the dark part.”
Suffice it to say, Carol is big on “making do,” and rarely sees the need to upgrade our equipment, considering all proactive technological advances frivolous. A trip to Best Buy for Carol is equivalent to walking the plank. So, I couldn’t help but laugh and quickly lowered all the blinds just to show her the real culprit was the TV.
As I fiddled with the settings to no avail, I marveled at how Carol’s unique perspective turned a technical glitch into a week-long adventure of creative interpretation. But on the bright side, I knew a trip to Best Buy and a brand new 75” TV was in our future.
