New Fangled Old Stuff With Grandpa Lou - Television

Wow, last week's edition of NFOSWGL was a bummer, huh? I gotta say, it's nice to be serious with yous, if even for a day, but now let me get back to my standard jackassery. I hope everyone is easing gently into fall. I'm sitting around in my own filth, staring out of the pretty window of my nice new apartment. That's right, I finally moved into a home with a window and a door and a ceiling, and nearly zero bugs (besides the ones I brought in with me, obviously). It's a nice feeling, after an entire year of floating around with nowhere to go. The window faces an assisted living facility, which sees an ambulance hastily pulling up roughly once every other day, and a middle-aged guy with no legs riding around in his motorized wheelchair, smiling as he scares up the pigeons.

What I'm trying to say is, man do I miss having a TV! The story in my bio is accurate. I left my ex in a hurry & then I found out she was as awful as all exes end up being (present party included). I felt like the TV and other stuff was bad karma so I told her to keep that damned TV and all my other stuff while she was at it. Then I started dating this new girl and she ended up being the love of my life, and when I realized that I could use things like "furniture" and "stuff" I explained to my new girlfriend that even though I was a penniless hobo, I was better off without an apartment wholly stocked with my awesome things. She naturally thought I was fucking mental, and while I agreed with her to a point, there was no way I was going to go and get all that shit back. "Bad memories," I explained.

The truth is, I only ever think of all that stuff when my girl would mention something like, "honey, my 24-inch TV was built in East Germany, and the remote control is actually made from an old Nintendo Excitebike cartridge." I'd bite my cheek and hope she'd forget that I left a Samsung plasma in an apartment 5 miles away. She didn't. Neither did my older brother, who would bring it up from time to time by politely saying, "WHAT THE Fuck IS WRONG WITH YOU. GO GET THAT TV BACK ALREADY." And I would just kinda shrug it off because hey, when I have some money, I'll just get another one. Besides, who needs a television when you have Netflix and a decent internet connection, right?

Well friends, I moved into my apartment two weeks ago and there's just a hole in my heart. I grew up on TV after all, and the couch faces an empty beige space right now, and to be honest, I don't even understand how people lived without a gigantic black monolith protruding from their walls. What are people without TVs doing, reading books like a bunch of farmers? Not in the America I live in pal. I need my 200 channels and I don't care how many awful reality shows are on. My last TV had the most amazing contrast ratio and a 5.1 surround system and so many cables coming out of it you'd think it was some kind of robot orgy back there (ALL HOLES FILLED).

So with that said, my ex sent me a text message about a month ago. She had asked, even though I had given her 90% of my earthly possessions, if I had a roll-up picnic table she had bought. She believed I had left it in my car. I told her that I didn't have it, because I don't own that car anymore (hey, a hobo's gotta eat). You could imagine my surprise when I found the little bag with the table in it at my mom's house last week. I could have easily just left it at my mom's or seen if anyone I knew wanted it, but honestly what the Fuck am I gonna do with a roll up picnic table? I texted her back. "If you want the table," I told her, "I'll trade you for my TV."

Now, guys, this was two things.

1: an act of desperation. This is a girl I haven't spoken to in at least 9 months if not longer and she's kind of a dickwad, but that TV sure was nice, and I have no cash flow, so why not see if I could coax her into giving it back, right?

2: an act of insanity. This girl was fucking nuts. Why would I risk going over to the house of someone who had threatened to, at one point, kill me in my sleep? Let me tell you why. Because TV is fucking awesome, and sometimes, you gotta get punched in the face so you can get some hot TV action.

So when she replied to say that I was more than welcome to take the TV, I told my brother that I'd need his help in picking it up. I immediately texted her back to ask when we could schedule a pickup. A day went by. Another text. Another day. One more text. No response. Of course, she was lying. This was something I should have realized, on account of all her prior shittiness, but you guys, I'm weak. TV has done so much for me. Where else could I have learned about… all the… stuff I learned from TV. Wow that sounds dumb. I mean, from Sesame Street to Spongebob, Nova to Planet Earth, The Simpsons to Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Wire and Breaking Bad and on and on. All of these shows have become part of my life in a perverse way, and regardless of my current hatred of most stuff on most channels, sometimes two or three shows make it all worth watching.

So my old man, Great Grandpa Lou, came by the new apartment yesterday, and knowing his intense love of TV, I knew it would be all of 5 minutes before he told me that we needed a new one. He didn't. This morning though, I got a call from my mom. "I'm at the store with your dad. Is a 50-inch gonna work for you?"

Call me spoiled, call my whole family crazy, but TV will make this house a home.