A few months ago my husband purchased a new TV. It has been upstairs because we needed to purchase a wall mount and figure out a way to hang it over the fireplace. On Saturday I had to go to the bank and my husband said he was going to run to Target to get a new belt. Great. I get home and there are tools all over the living room and my husband is standing on a chair and banging on the wall trying to mount the TV. I sit down to hem a pair of pants and watch him. He turns around and says, "Hey, do we have a stud finder?" I looked up and very sweetly said, "Honey, do you really think I have a stud finder that you don't know about?" He didn't like that answer. He left to get some more tools (and a Roku box) and tinkered with it some more.
The next day he hooked up some wires. It looked horrible. The TV is off center, there are wires everywhere. I pointed out that the TV was off center and he went into this long explanation about the studs in the wall and the weight of the TV. I could tell it was a point of contention, so I just backed off. It looked hideous though. The wires look horrible. It was just bad. But I said nothing.
Monday night we were cleaning up the living room and I couldn't take it anymore. "Honey, this looks horrible. The wires and everything are ugly." He was very defensive about it because it is his project. "I thought you wanted the TV downstairs, the suds in the wall, blah blah blah." So I asked if he could do something about the wires. He said he could but it would be so expensive. Then he said, "I still need to hook up the XBOX." I said, "I don't want an XBOX sitting on my fireplace mantel, that is not going to happen." He thought for a minute, "We can get a small table and put it next to the fireplace and set the XBOX on it."
This was me when those words escaped his lips:
"Well, why don't we just bring lawn chairs in and eat beef jerky sticks and watch Nascar and start feeding the neighborhood cats while were at it." He rolled his eyes at me. "Why don't we get a cabinet for the XBOX so you don't have to see it." I don't really feel like investing in a piece of furniture for the XBOX when we need a new mattress. We don't really have space in that room for a cabinet, anyway. I lost my will to fight for it. I thought, I will just acquiesce and mourn my living room. "That's fine. Do what you would like to do." "No. I want you to be happy." It is not enough for me to agree to go along with the plan, I have to sincerely agree and love the idea of having an XBOX cabinet in my living room. I may be good a faking a lot of things but excitement about an XBOX cabinet, I can not. "Well, I'll just move the TV back upstairs." "But there will holes in the wall from this huge mount." "I'll patch and paint over it." Yeah, when he gets around to it. "Just leave it here. I really don't care anymore."
He sat down next to me on the couch and we both sat and stared at the TV and wires in silence for a few minutes. He turned to me and said, "If it makes you feel any better, I hate how the TV looks too." I sighed, "We are not buying an XBOX cabinet." He said he would come up with something. He did. He hooked up the XBOX and hid it. He fixed the wires somewhat. Now I only hate the TV a little bit instead of a lot. At least I don't have to buy furniture for the damn XBOX.
Aww... I was right with you until you dissed NASCAR. Loved the post.
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