I’m old enough to remember when moving a TV was one of the least desirable things you could do. TVs were, once upon a time, large, heavy, boxy affairs. Even a modestly sized 27-inch screen would weigh a hefty amount. Then, much like seasons in the sun, things changed. TV’s got flatter and wider and lighter.
Moving a 27-inch screen now is nothing. One person can do it with great ease. My 56 HD rear projection is fairly lightweight, just awkward, and needs another person to help move it around. It truly felt like an evolution of technology. Then it had to go and die on me. To be fair the TV was 16 years old, that’s not a bad run for a TV. It was state of the art in 2006, but today it’s a little behind the times.
I was dreading going to buy a new TV, I find most salespeople just want to sell me dazzle and don’t know how to respond when I ask things like “How does a black and white movie look on it?” The odds were truly in my favor when I went to the big box store to look at a TV, as I walked into a cluster of people talking about how great Brian Wilson, the genius behind The Beach Boys is. I had found my people.
I didn’t think it would go so quickly. Yet I was out of the store in 20 minutes ready to load my new TV into the back of my SUV. I picked a very modern TV with a very thin screen. A screen so thin it reminded me that I was living in the future and mad that there are still no flying cars. Considering that TV technology has progressively gotten lighter, I could only imagine how easy it would be to move this wafer-thin TV around.
The salesperson came out to help me load the TV, they lifted one end and I lifted the other. I grunted, the TV was not the light Sunday walk through the park I was expecting it to be, but it was heavy. Downright as heavy as a larger, older boxy TV. We managed to get the TV loaded, I was trying to act cool and not like my arms wanted to detach themselves from my body and run away.
The real problem was what to do when I got it home. I couldn’t unload this mastodon alone. I first thought about calling my friend, Brumley, to help. Brumley is a part of this new thing on TikTok called “barbel Tok” where he dresses and acts like an old-time weightlifter.
Brumley has a curled mustache and a striped shirt he wears everywhere. Sometimes when Brumley comes by he chugs a dozen raw eggs, will flex, and make proclamations like “Behold the power of oats!” The only problem is that he does this when you ask him something simple like “How are things going?”
Brumley was unavailable, he was out of state being a keynote speaker at “Flex Con.” Undaunted I thought I would give it a try myself, one attempt at that barely budged the thing so that was it. Luckily, I was able to get a neighbor to come and help me. It was indeed awkward getting the beast out of the SUV, but then we both managed to carry the thing into my home.
That was, luckily, the worst of it. Unpacking and getting it into place wasn’t too bad. It’s funny, though, to think that maybe TVs have had a “full circle” moment. We went from heavy to light, to heavy again. Then again, when you buy a fancy TV with a screen thinner than a pencil, you’d want it as weighed down as much as possible too. See you next week, with arm strain.
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