The Chronicles Of Jessica

They don't make things the way they used to. Or maybe Paul and I just have bad luck when it comes to "stuff". We bought a television less than two years ago and the stupid thing just died. The tv was an RCA, who are now on my list of products and companies I will not give my money to, along with Radio Shack, Applebees and the Italian restaurant on 8th street where Paul and I had dinner the other week and even though the whole place was empty they seated us next to a bunch of loud Republicans crowing about McCain. Also Long John Silver's. But that policy has been in place for a while now - they know why.

Since when do you get less than two years out of a television set? My old tv set (which had a vcr as part of it) I got my sophomore year in college. It survived all of college, 7 moves (2 across state lines), and countless screeings of B movies and still managed to tape Seinfeld every time I told it to. That was quality engineering. Or whatever. This one started turning itself off randomly about a week ago and after a while it just refused to stay on. I first noticed that it would turn itself off when I would leave the room sometimes and I started to think we had a ghost, a judgemental ghost who disdained me for watching America's Next Top Model and reruns of Biggest Loser. But it started turning itself off during more highbrow fare too, and even though Paul employed his time-honored method of electronics repair (opening things up and blowing on them or into them), the tv stubbornly refused to shape up.

We got on Craigs List and started searching for desperate people about to move who are jettisoning everything they own. This is a great way to get things cheaply. People start to panic when they realize they have a 12 feet of space in the truck and 16 feet worth of crap and they're anxious to get rid of it as quickly as possible. This is where we come in! We can take advantage of that desperation and get a cheap television - it's the American way and a good deed, if you look at it a certain way. Which I do. Paul found a dude in Dupont Circle who is leaving town under what seemed to me to be possibly sketchy circumstances, but whatever. We didn't want to have a threesome with him or anything, we just wanted his tv. So 9 flights of stairs and one herniated husband later - voila! We're back in business.

Now of course we have a dead television set. This presents us with a problem. You can't just put your old set out on the curb and hope it gets picked up. It will sit in a landfill for all eternity and our children and our children's children will all wind up with three boobs and five nostrils if we keep doing that sort of thing. You have to recycle it, you have to be responsible. Or if you're my parents, you can just stick it in the appliance graveyard being housed in one of your half a dozen bedrooms.

Turns out we have to take it to a special e-waste facility on the outskirts of DC and that will probably be just as unpleasant as it sounds. But we have a dead printer we have to get rid of, too and you can't just let these things lie around. If affects the morale of the other appliances.

We also have what appears to be either a large mouse or a small rat in the kitchen but I feel confident the landlady will take care of it right away! Snort. Who am I kidding. That rat will still be living here when we vacate this craptastic place next spring. That rat will have had his mail forwarded, he'll have the games coming in on pay-per-view, he'll have Hunan King on speed dial he'll be so ensconced. We may as well put his name on the lease and give him his own special dish right now.

Ours is not this charismatic.