The TV has become the penis

Readers who enjoy vicarious woe are in for a splendid couple of weeks because a wave of woe is crashing upon me.

First off, car trouble. The very day I sent in the final payment on my 2007 Saturn Vue, I had to spend $783.57 to fix something that sounded vaguely pancreatic to me.

I understand as much about vehicular mechanics as I do human organs like the pancreas. I have no idea what my pancreas does, if I need it or how to fix it when it stops functioning.

So when the mechanic starts talking about degraded idler arms and mevotech drag links, I start nodding like a chicken in the rain and just get out the checkbook, once again wishing Dad had steered me into a garage instead of a golf course when I was growing up.

Then during the hottest week of the year our air conditioner broke. My HVAC guy said it would take $650 to fix it, but he had a better idea.

“You could get a new heat pump that’ll improve the efficiency of the whole system. I can get you a really nice one for $5,900.”

So now I have to hope for extreme winters and summers so we can realize rapid savings on our electric bills. A pleasant mild day when the furnace/AC unit idles will mean the expense is going to waste. I’ll only be happy when it’s Nome cold or Hell hot.

Then -- and this is the only misfortune that caused me to shed tears -- our 3-year-old 50-inch HDTV popped and went black while my wife was home alone watching. The repairman said it would cost $1,235 to repair the $1,500 behemoth, a foolish calculation when new ones could be had for less.

To me, it was like the day I heard John Lennon died.

I couldn’t believe it. I felt anger, denial, remorse. I wanted to lash out at the person I blamed.

That was my wife. She’s always hated the TV for the very reason I’ve always adored it. She thought it was too big.

Can you believe it? A TV that was too big? I try to avoid cliche profanity, but WTF?

Her hatred stems from my cunning subterfuge the day we bought it in 2007. We agreed on a nifty 42-inch set. Then the second she was out the door (conflicting schedules meant we’d taken two cars) I said to the salesman, “Okay, now I want you to give me eight more inches.”

It’s become impossible for a man to talk about TVs without it sounding sexual. That’s because televisions have usurped the penis as the way for men to prove their masculinity.

We boast about our inches. We talk about how it throbs with 2M 1080i pixel resolution and 100,000:1 lagoon contrast.

A big TV has become the true measure of a man.

It’s true. Right up until the moment he unveiled his breathtaking 56-inch HD monster, we all made fun of our one buddy behind his back for being such a nerdy poindexter (shout out to Ron Shannon, Latrobe, Pa.!)

So it’s not a metaphoric stretch to say the TV’s blindside destruction felt to me like a real kick in the nuts.

Call it Val’s revenge. When she insisted the new TV be no greater than 42-inches, my emasculation was complete.

I argued in vain that I was going to advance all the furniture three feet to compensate for the TV’s shortcomings.

So you see, it’s been a season of unrelenting dreariness for me.

Then on Thursday, finally, some really great news that makes up for all the despair.

My wife and kids left me.

Hallelujah!

Not for good, that would devastate me. I’m pretty sure.

I’m home alone while she’s taken the kids to spend four days with her sister and her five kids.

Talk about a two-fer for me!

I’m truly overjoyed by their absence and again left to wonder how the three people I love more than any others can make me so happy by leaving me all by myself.

So it’s beer for breakfast and donuts for dinner and I’m taking the new TV to Daddy Boot Camp.

I’m going to watch all the violent and profane things I can’t enjoy when the girls are around. That means “Hot Fuzz,” “Shaun of the Dead,” “Midnight Run,” “The Big Lebowski,” and the four-disc best of from the HBO classic, “The Larry Sanders Show.”

And I think I’ll give the nudist thing a try. Yeah, it’s a pleasant day. I’ll shuck the duds and watch TV in the buff.

Of course, I’m sure I’m in for some poignancy amidst my revelry.

I’ll be longing for those eight inches that aren’t ever coming back.

And, to be clear, I’m talking about the old TV, the only measure that matters.

x x x

Tweet of the Week @8days2amish: "There is no punishment too severe for the llama farmer who names any of his livestock Dolly."

Timber! HDTV escapes crashing poplar

Val called in a panic. A majestic nearly 100-foot tulip poplar had come crashing down in the front yard. The urgency in her voice left me confused about the damage.

“Is the house okay?

“Everyone’s fine,” she said.

“Good, but what about the house?”

“It just missed taking out the whole front corner by a couple of feet,” she said.

I breathed a sigh of relief. When she told me the tree had fallen I immediately imagined the worst.

I was fearful the tree had taken out the 48-inch big screen HDTV. That would have been tragic.

Sure, the kids getting nicked would have been bad. However, ever since they were old enough to crawl and crash down the stairs, I’ve drilled it into them that life ain’t for sissies. None of us is going to escape without scars.

They know that to get though this life you got to be quick and practically bulletproof. I’d trust their cat-like instincts to dodge any crashing tree trunks.

But the poor, majestic TV is utterly defenseless. Had that mighty poplar tumbled down into the southeast corner of our little cottage in the woods, it surely would have taken out the large screen HDTV days before a huge sports weekend.

And that would have left me numb and mumbling in grief.

My credentials in some guy categories are admittedly sketchy. I don’t belong to any fantasy sports leagues. I’d rather kill time than a 12-point buck. And all I know about cars is how to drive ‘em and wash ‘em -- and I don’t wash ‘em.

But in one important area, I’m solidly in the all-guy camp. I’m crazy in love with my big screen TV.

It’s 48-inches of 1080p pixelated wonder. Ever since we got it last year, I’ve found myself watching things like the Food Network and The Weather Channel the way I used to watch, say, the Godfather trilogy.

“Notice the vibrancy of the colors. Marvelous! See how they enhance the drama inherent in the storyline?”

One of these days, probably when I’m about 50, I’m intending to become an avid pot smoker and when I do I plan on tuning into the weather channel for hours of mindless viewing. It’s just so perfectly soothing.

I feel sheepish admitting it, but despite their destructive capacity, I find myself watching hopefully for when the announcer will gravely intone that those lava lamp-like satellite pictures indicate the latest tropical depression has been upgraded to a “Cat 2” hurricane.

I felt this way even as Hurricane Ike roared into Galveston, a city where I know one of the three confirmed and regular readers of “8Days2Amish” resides. In fact, it’s her job to persuade people to travel to and enjoy Galveston (although I’m sure she didn’t extend any such gracious invitations to Ike).

Maybe I just like hearing meteorologists say, “Cat 2!”

Then, of course, there are the sports. Just this weekend, we have some great NFL action, foremost being the Steelers playing the Philadelphia Eagles. Then there’s the Ryder Cup with the team of pampered pretty boys from the USA again making it difficult for me to root for them over the beer-swilling pranksters from Europe. Throw in some major league baseball pennant races and the last game in Yankee Stadium history and I could conceivably cocoon myself for nearly 48 hours of great sports viewing, all in glorious high definition.

Previous to HDTV, this was the pivotal news season I’d normally devote hours and hours to election coverage and the shrill debates over whether the Democratic or the Republican candidate is telling the bigger fibs.

But I’ve really cut back on watching the news. It’s just so depressing. The financial crisis is among the worst in history. Wars are raging on two continents. Food and gas prices remain high. I’m sure all the newscasts are saying things are looking pretty bleak.

Maybe so.

But from where I’m sitting, things have never looked better.