There has been a strange phenomenon in our otherwise low key little bungalow. We have gone from television sets that are teeny, to only tiny, to friggin’ huge. I was the last holdout in this transition. The aesthetics of the living room are my domain, and I’ve held to a Frazier-like eschewment of anything gaudy. Not only the monstrously humongous TV but the apparatus you put it in. I wasn’t game for a double-D-cup wall unit in my face every time I entered the living room. It took our youngest teenage son to move me past my passé philosophy.

“We need a new TV. This one is too small. ALL my friends have bigger ones.” That last line of reasoning never carried weight with me. I fought him on the size issue too. “Well, I’m sorry if our B-cup television is not good enough for you any more,” I countered with expert motherly guilt.

“Wha—-t?!” he replied, “I, I, I didn’t say it wasn’t good enough. I’d just like to actually see what’s happening. The pictures on my friends’ TVs are amazing.” Then he played the child’s trump card in parent/child disputes of this kind. “You don’t have to get me anything else for Christmas, just this. My gift can be for the whole family.”

The nerve. Also, the effectiveness!

I had to admit I was having a hard time reading the program guide on our small TV from across the room. My husband and I are both using bifocal contacts and glasses now. I guess we were ready for the large print version of television as well.

I realized that I too would like the big boob TV, but I played it coy til I was out doing some casual Saturday shopping with my husband. We had purchased a pair of wool socks at the mall and were wondering what to do next. Well, we could go to Wallie World and just browse at the large screen TVs . . . “Okay!”

This pressed the launch button in my husband. He became a man on a mission. He takes electronics and gadgetry deadly serious, and I, through my innocent suggestion, had released the hounds. He was on the scent now. We were in for a long haul of intense shopping research.

After standing a distance away from several models to compare picture quality/price ratio, we finally settled on one with the sharpest image. Now for the support system. We opted for a minimal unobtrusive design. While choosing the stand, someone from the store informed us that they were out of our carefully chosen TV model. A branch store 30 minutes away had only one in that model. They would hold it for one hour.

We quickly paid for the low profile (but heavy!) stand and loaded it up. We raced to the store that had our TV and sighed in relief when both it and the stand fit in our small Scion. This was obviously meant to be.

The credit card company called us on our way home. There was unusual activity on our card and they were just checking to see if it was really us. Yes, we laughed. Not to worry. Could we verify our purchases of the last two hours? Let’s see: a TV stand, a large screen TV; oh, and a pair of socks. Yes, that’s it. We are two wild and crazy shoppers.

Amidst much flurried rearranging, my husband erected the stand and connected all the different components to their proper ports. We eagerly awaited our son’s return home from a band trip. We played it cool. Half the fun of doing something unexpected is acting as if nothing happened. Watching the joyful look of shock on his face completed our adventure.

The old living room TV has replaced the even older one that was in our bedroom. I just don’t know. It’s looking kind of puny in there in the corner on its small table. Maybe we should check out the ads this weekend. We wouldn’t want to miss out on some large screen deal. They might be having a special on the Pamela Anderson model.

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Our family lives in a house built by rugged individuals over time. That is to say that Doober, Goober, and Bubba each got just so far in their jerry-rigged, sub-code sequential renderings before each one put the hill country charmer up for sale. Enter city rubes, Laurey and Bill. We spotted this idyllic beauty in a real estate magazine and were smitten. We stayed smitten for quite some time, even while knowing the place had been built by sparing every expense. Superfluous and otherwise. Such is love.

We approached our rural digs with urban naiveté and enchantment. The surroundings were lovely; hilly green acreage that reminded us of New England. The house itself was really secondary. It was serviceable and with our hope and energy, why, we’d have this place gorgeous in no time.

The initial enthusiasm lasted for several years. Then a creeping jadedness and exhaustion began to set in. This place needed so much and we were so tired of the overwhelming labor and expense. We decided to go back to “residential living,” something that would be move-in ready, updated, and closer to town. We put our once heart-capturing hill country charmer on the market and nervously waited for potential buyers to come to call.

After a few months on a cooled market, an unannounced agent came to the door with some lean and hungry buyers. I looked at Bill. Bill looked at me. Just when what we were waiting for came to our doorstep, we realized that we did not want to sell our Goober, Doober, & Bubba special at any price. No matter its flaws, the house was our home and had imprinted itself into our psyches. We just couldn’t abandon it and go live in a cookie cutter subdivision, no matter how easy it would have made our lives. We called our own agent, paid a small fee to get out of the contract, and celebrated our narrow escape.

When funds did materialize in ample enough supply to really take on the giant, I scrutinized our property with a keen take–no-prisoners dispassion. The rutted, not so quaint country driveway was smoothed. The old blue carpet was replaced with laminate and a neutral loop. A small deck was built off the dining area to finally give us a place to sit and view the hilly vista behind the house. Driveway — done. Floors — done. Outdoor living space — done.

Now we turn to the mother of all remodeling projects: the kitchen. The words are barely out before winces of pain creep onto my husband’s face. The expenses (expected and unexpected), the anticipated time without a sink or stove, the piles of culinary detritus taking up space in another room, the “you better be sure ‘cause you’re going to live with this a lo—–ng time” choices. It can all be too much.

Upon hearing my latest estimates, my husband just stares dourly at me for sustained intervals. I awkwardly wait in limbo for the possibility that the whole thing might be scrapped. It feels like we are riding an old car that is alternately accelerating and braking every few feet. Not only are we getting nowhere but also being terribly jolted as we’re taken for a ride.

I’ve considered the idea of quietly dropping the whole thing as casually as if I were walking away from a trinket at a pricey shop. Oh, that. I wasn’t really interested. “Just looking.” But the thought lasts about two seconds before I am mentally sledgehammering my way through our old cabinets and eviscerating the room in a style reminiscent of Kathy Bates in “Fried Green Tomatoes.” I need more light, more air.

Yes, it is a test of marital strength and perhaps wisely deferred ‘til a later time. But surely we have developed enough in our twenty-six years of marriage to take this step now. Surely we have evolved enough spiritually to undertake even this character-challenging disruption in the heart of our home. Ya think?

If we can just hold the image of the beautiful transformation that our efforts will have borne for just a teensy bit of time … well then, we’ll at last have the home of our dreams.

Except for the master bath………

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