This Old Box

                The story of my mother and I living together has been an on-again off-again tale with unconditional love and a lot of laughter.  This last time my mother and I moved back into the home in which my brother and I were raised; the magnificent structure that stands as a piece of history in our college town; the contemporary-for-its-time house that broke rules to make a memorable place for a family to grow.  Back once again, we were attempting to stage it to sell as we had been enlightened by the ever-addictive station HGTV that makes every viewer feel as if they can capitalize on their weekend, put on a pair of work gloves and move mountains (or walls)!  She claimed the downstairs as hers, and I made the upstairs my own. 

                Lately, we have become creatures of new habits in this home.  After a hard day's work, we prop up our bare feet on the sectional sofa and engulf ourselves in conversation atop whatever TV show has half our interest and, in turn, decompress.  On this particular evening, the digital signals sent up to the Heavens and back down to Earth got lost among the stars for a half a second; the crystal clear picture hitched, which drew our attention to the cubed pixels that broke the image and made the sound glitch.  We laughed over our dramatic reactions to this very relative problem, and we were instantly taken back to a much simpler time. 

                We became reminiscent of the days of the wooden panel TV that my parents bought for next to nothing just so their daughter and son could enjoy Sesame Street from time to time.  The old box, that could have killed us both with its weight had it fallen, presented us with four channels.  You read it right, FOUR channels.  My brother and I learned to enjoy the outdoors by playing Star Wars with sticks and indulging in a little Jurassic Park in our seemingly endless jungle-yard.  But don't be fooled; the moment we were allowed to sit in front of a friend's TV and watch Nickelodeon, we were glued. 

                They say the grass is always greener on the other side, and it's true.  I was constantly wanting to go to the homes that provided cartoons and Pop-Tarts, and they were always wanting to come to mine for the swimming pool and popsicles.  It wasn't unusual for us kids to make our way into the kitchen of my house and ask my mom if we could watch TV while we ate lunch.  With her permission, we sat on the floor with our heads tilted all the way up to watch the big bubble that portrayed color from the front and black and white from the side.  Frequently, the picture would turn to speckled static that ran from the bottom to the top of the screen, ruining what little time we had in front of the TV.  However, it didn't take us long to learn the routine; a good whack on the side always did the trick!  After a few times of sprinting into the kitchen to ask my mom to come fix the TV, we felt that we were competent enough to do it ourselves.  Not a second after the screen blurred, I was up smacking the TV until it corrected its behavior.  Soon enough, my friends were asking if they could partake in the fixing.  And not long after that we were arguing over who got to put the old TV in its place.  

                The flat screens we have now have no side to smack and the cable guy is just a phone call away; but that massive box of a TV, though I wouldn't take it back for the world, made for a pretty entertaining memory in this old house.  Here's to moving onward; to smaller, smarter, and simplified!