Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Day 3 of Thanksgiving

Prewriting today's thanks-giving and completely out of time and inspiration, but I will tell you what I am NOT thankful for (and maybe that's why it's giving us such trouble): consumer electronics. I have had it up to here with the damn pieces of crap.

We have been trying for days to figure out some way to set up headphones to our new TV (which is a total indulgence and which we are SO thankful for! we had some help buying it and it was the best present for Terri EVER since she is stuck in the bedroom so often).

People: if you have to buy a new TV, and you like to use headphones, BE SURE IT HAS A HEADPHONE JACK. Because otherwise you will be doomed to trying every conceivable way to hook headphones, or small external speakers, or some combination thereof, and FAILING MISERABLY BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. It is not possible. It's so impossible that we are considering returning this TV and getting a different one with a headphone jack, because there is no converter currently made to solve this problem, and I am seriously out of patience with this issue. Packing up and returning a TV is such a hassle that that alone tells you how frustrated we are, that we are even considering taking such extreme measures.

We need headphones because our house has no insulation. It's freezing, and sound carries. So we'd like to be considerate neighbors when we're cuddled in bed against the freezing, trying to watch Buffy slay some vamps, and not wanting to blast our neighbors out of bed.

Again, this is a problem of abundance and not of lack, but in this case, "lack" is sounding better and better.

Currently we have to return items to Sears, RadioShack and BestBuy, all of which were promised to work and none of which did.

So I'm not very thankful for modern consumer electronics, but I AM thankful for liberal return policies. Is that good enough for a thankfulness post?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think it counts.

i am to the point where when i have to buy a new piece of electronica, i assume its not going to work on the first try. i assume im going to have to purchase some type of wire/cable/converter appartatus just to get it to turn on. i never believe things that say "plug and play." they are liars. when something does work on the first try, im always amazed.

i hope you get it all straightened out soon.

Stefanie said...

Grr. Reminds me of when we bought our $99 DVD player several years ago and had to go back for another $99 worth of stuff to make it work on our TV. It's great you'll be able to take the TV back though in spite of it being a big pain. All for being nice neighbors!