On Valentine’s Day, at breakfast, I gave my wife a bracelet. As she put it on, she said something that shocked me to my very core.

She looked up, smiled and asked, “You want to go out today and get you one of those flat-screen TVs?”

I almost fell out of my chair.

I know a lot of you out there have had high-definition TV for a while now, but we’ve been limping along with a set we bought at some point in the last century.

The only time I’ve seen HD is when we go the electronics store, and I linger in the TV section, mooning over the plasma images, marveling over how you can see every blade of grass on the football field. Eventually, one of the kids has to lead me by the hand out to the car.

My wife has told me many times that she could live with just the little 12-inch black-and-white set we had when we got married.

So it’s entirely reasonable, then, that I jumped up from my breakfast and ran out to warm up the car while yelling at the kids to put on their coats.

I squealed out of the driveway, knocking over a trash can, and within 20 minutes I was the proud owner of an Akai 27-inch LCD TV, model LCT2785TA.

When we got the TV home and set it up, though, I found the picture at home wasn’t anything near what I’d seen in the store.

Our new TV took our old cable signal, and, instead of turning it into a big beautiful detailed picture, just stretched it out so that everyone on the screen looked as if they’d instantly gained 50 pounds. The tennis match looked like a Seniors tournament. Oprah looked like she’d had a relapse and dived, head first, into the fridge.

I called my cable provider and found the only way we’d see the crisp, detailed images from the store would be to upgrade to a “Hi-Def” package. I groaned.

The last thing I wanted to do was tell my wife that she’d not only agreed to a TV she didn’t want, but also that we’d be paying more each month just to watch it.

I scanned through the book that came with the TV and found that we could get High Def right over the air by hooking up an antenna. I rummaged through the attic and found one of those cheap little antennas that come with every TV but that everyone just tosses aside. I hooked it up to the HDTV and pressed the button on the remote.

The picture that came in was crystal clear, every detail in amazing contrast. But there was one problem. It didn’t move.

I called the TV company in a panic. The man told me that I didn’t have a strong enough antenna.

I went through the house, scrounging in drawers for every old antenna I could find. I hooked them all up together in a Frankenstein monster of an rig and draped it across our windows.

I got a moving picture, but only for a few seconds before little blocks of distortion spread across the screen and it eventually went black. I took to changing the channels and running up to the TV to look at the detailed image before it went bad.

“Look at that incredible picture!” I’d yell out to my wife in panic. “Now!”

The next day, I bought a special HDTV antenna with “signal-boosting” technology. Better, but not by much. I’d get a picture for two or three minutes, but then the screen would suddenly go black, and a cheery message would dance across the screen: “No Signal!” If I had my own screen, it would read “Embolism!”

I picked up the phone and called my friendly cable provider. They could give me a Hi-Def package that would only cost $7 more than what we were already overpaying for cable.

Plus, they’d throw in two movie channels free for two months if I’d upgrade. The only catch was, I’d have to wait a week for an appointment.

I’m still waiting anxiously for the cable man to come and hook me up. I’ve been filling my time running back and forth between the five antennas strung up across our windows, trying to get just a few extra seconds of clear picture before I get the cheery “No Signal!” greeting of doom, and I scream in frustration.

If the cable guy doesn’t get here soon, I’m going to be watching my Hi-Def package on a screen with a big fist hole through the middle of it.

source : www.post-gazette.com