JR has worked through all 5 stages

Yesterday morning I received an IM from The Boy: 

The Boy: i uh think the big tv is broken

 we turned it on and the picture came up and then went out and started making a low buzzing sound

  and smelling like dead electronics bad

  candance says its the smell of ozone, which ive never heard of

me: aw crap

 of course it is no longer under warranty

 The Boy: :(

This may sound like an innocuous conversation but The Boy and I knew the ramifications. And, there were plenty of them. We would have to shell out for a new TV right before tax season, we would have to figure out what to do with the old dead one, and we would have to decide whether to buy a bigger one, these were just a few of the things that were rattling around in my head but the one huge elephant in this room was; JR would be pissed!   I mean Irish lad pissed! JR doesn't get mad often but when he does it is not a pretty site and this was sure to piss him.the.hell.off.

You see, JR is a vidiot (video-idiot). He lives and breathes by his video equipment. It is his one true passion, well, except me but I'm a little harder to turn on. Uh...that's not what I mean. Oh hell, let's face it, I'm 51 years old, it's exactly what I mean! It's that menopause thing. Why am I explaining this to ya'll?

Back to JR.

I came home to find him on the phone with Vizio customer service, though if you asked JR there was really no real service involved in that conversation. I could see that he was passing through the 5 stages of grief that all of us pass through when we have lost a loved one. 

Yes, I said loved one.

JR's TV counts. 

Trust me. 

It does.



DENIAL: If plugging it in and trying to turn it on, over and over again, isn't denial I don't know what is. My heart was breaking for this poor man and his TV. It was sad.

ANGER: Can we talk about THE SWEARING when the customer service people kept asking (FYI Visio customer service reps. Don't ask more than once if you don't want your head bitten off. Just trying to help you out.) him if he bought the extended warranty? His answer was: "NO. If I had known that your product was a piece of shit I wouldn't have bought it to begin with". That was while he was on the phone. We (and I'm using the royal we here) got an earful, with the f-word liberally laced within, after he got off the phone.  After awhile I convinced him that his best recourse was to get onto Amazon and Costco (where he bought the thing) to rate it poorly. He could also fire off some hot but polite,( yeah asking too much) reasonable emails to Vizio and Costco about his lack of satisfaction in this product. He took the extra step of emailing EVERYONE he knew (I apologize to any of our friends and family reading who received said email. I had no control over the content of his email).

BARGAINING: He went through this stage fairly quickly after he determined that the TV couldn't be repair. Most of the bargaining was with me. I told him that after we move we will have a certain amount of money for a new one and he could get whatever he wanted. When we first got married he worked and I kept house/kids/money. It was our division of labor and it has never changed. I've offered to let him take on the money part of our lives but he has always said no. He gives me this song and dance about how good I am at it, yada, yada, yada. Yeah, right! (you are very welcome to my dirty laundry)

 

DEPRESSION: This stage manifested itself in his sitting in front of the TV all.night.long. He even tried to turn it on and off a couple of times. I think he was reaffirming to himself that it was dead.  He could have come into the bedroom to watch the little TV. He could have moved the little TV into the living room to watch. He could have done a zillion things around the house. None of which he did. He sat in front of the broken TV, a broken man. It was very sad.

ACCEPTANCE: After an hour or so of pity came acceptance. He accepted then embraced (a little too whole heartily if you ask me) the notion that he would get a new TV soon. Being the take charge kind of guy that he is, the search started. He got onto Consumer Reports to see which ones were the best rated, the most reliable, and the best value. He shopped Amazon, Costco, Best Buy and anywhere else he could think of for his chosen brand. He narrowed it down, he aggressively shopped, I kept the credit card out of his hand.

While I like this stage better than the pitiful depression stage I'm a little afraid that for the next several months I'm going to hear nothing but, this TV rates higher than this other TV and if we get this one it does this extraordinary thing. This will get very old for me very fast. Why? Because I just don't care. TVs just don't do it for me. 

Does it show a picture?  Good, I don't need to know how many pixels per inch.

Does it have sound? Great, I don't need to know the Dbs or whatever.

Does it turn on and off? Terrific, that makes it one step up from what we have now.

He will make sure I know everything. God bless him. I'll listen, nod, and assure him because that's what I'm here for. 

So that's where it's at around here. JR is planning to go pick up the TV box (don't even get me started about saving component boxes) from storage tonight if he has time. Otherwise the old dead TV will be sitting on it's stand taunting him. Pray that he gets off early enough to get the box so this thing can go to TV heaven. Wherever that is?

Love,

M