A Tale of Two Super Bowls...A Saga

Want to hear something funny? Let us start at the beginning...

About this time last year, my darling husband received his annual bonus check from work. And he began to scheme...

Andrew's dream, being the technological grand master of this house, was to own a high definition, bigger screen tv. So of course, being the loyal and devoted wife that I am...I agreed to his plot, but not without a scheme of my own. I was fine with him getting the new, larger tv, but since the particular tv that he wanted was wider than the old one, we were going to have to buy a new entertainment center.

Now, understand, this did not break my heart. After all, we were still living with the first entertainment center that we, as a newly-wed couple, had purchased from Kmart for our little apartment. We bought it together, but it was his idea. I never liked it. It was made of a combo of fake blond "wood" and speckled dark grey "wood." It was far too modern and manish for my taste, but being the sweet new little bride, I didn't dare give my real opinion.

Fast forward five and a half years and darling Andrew knew, without a doubt, how I truly felt about that entertainment center. So the deal was struck and the frenzied research for the perfect tv began. (I say "frenzied" because this HAD to be purchased in time to watch last years' Superbowl in high definition. I say "research" because we're both nerds!) Anyhow, we finally chose the tv that fit our budget and our requirements and then, in what was one of the fastest big-purchase choices we've ever made, we shopped for and bought our beautiful new entertainment center, all in one day, with a 15 month old in tow. We assembled the new three-piece entertainment center late into the night, moved the behemoth piece into place and then gently carried the new HDTV into our house and placed it in it's new home. It was a beautiful moment. If I remember correctly, this was all done the day before the Superbowl...

Only to discover that the Superbowl was being broadcast by a station that did not air in HD. The hubby wasn't pleased, but he had great hopes for future tv viewing.

Fast forward to 2007....We live in northern Indiana. It's Superbowl time and the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears are playing each other. In the Superbowl. And we can watch in HD! (Keep in mind, this may only happen once in our lifetimes.) Andrew has been nearly giddy and that, of course makes me happy too.

Which makes what happened tonight oh so sad. Andrew came home from work and started shoveling more snow. (I measured at least 14" today on the deck.) While he was outside, I tried to turn the channel to something else only to discover that the tv was acting strange. So strange, in fact, that it turned itself off. Now, we have DirecTv and sometimes the signal from the dish gets confused, so I assumed that maybe the snow had somehow built up in the dish and needed to be swept out. However, it quickly became apparent that the problem went much deeper.

After trying all the troubleshooting techniques that I know (and trying to gently break the news to Andrew), I called Samsung customer service and spoke to a representative, after holding forever, of course. The friendly young man took down all my information and then asked me to describe what was wrong. So I told him that the picture was changing shape and size, bowing on the sides to form an hourglass shape and then shutting off every few minutes. His response? "Wow, I've never heard of anything like that happening before. That's really weird." Oh, and did I mention that he just happened to tell me that the warranty just ran out a few days ago? Of course it did!

Thankfully, the kindly young man must have sensed my frustration because he offered to extend the warranty for another month and he faxed my complaint to a local repair company and made it sound like whatever needed to be done would be covered under warranty, which is good, if that's what actually happens. The only problem is...there are only 3 work days, including a Sat., before the Superbowl.

As I told the customer service guy, "You know, this really stinks because we live in Indiana and the Colts are in the Superbowl and this is really not going to make my husband happy." The guy laughed, and I think took pity on us.

So, that's all I know for now. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I'm going to call the repair shop and beg for their services ASAP. For now though...we've resigned ourselves to the tiny old 13" tv on a stool in front of the fancy HDTV and lovely entertainment center.

Ain't life grand?