Don't Need it Now

It all started on Christmas when my brother-in-law informed my kids that they were living in a stone age because our television was old.

Up until that point it seemed that we had just bought the set. Turns out it's at least eight years old. I don't pay attention to such details. I can see the 27-time World Series Champion Yankees on it...what else do I need?

And I think of that all the time. Bono of U2 singing in it's a Beautiful Day, what you don't have you don't need it now, don't need it now, don't need it now.

I don't need a new television. But then I went to a buddy's house and the Yankees were on. I could see the stones in the dirt.

"That's a helluva' picture," I said.

And the kids started to chime in. Jake likes to compare his childhood to being raised in a concentration camp. Funny kid. 4 more years until we are packing him off, I believe.

And if it's up to me, we'll have the same television.

So I come through the door last night and I see a television in our front room. Brand new. Medium-size, probably a great picture. It's still in the box.

"That's Matt's to take to college," my beautiful wife said.

I tried real hard to imagine a television in my freshman dorm room. Help me out here, Gag and Rosie...did we have one?

I'm thinking at best it was a real small black and white with no cable, of course. There wasn't a computer. No video games.

"You went to school in the stone ages," my mother-in-law said.

"That's why all you did was drink," my wife chimed in.

"I must have done something more than drink," I tried in my own defense.

"Yeah, right."

So, a brand new television is walking out the door this afternoon. Me and my poor refugee kids are going to have to make due with the monstrosity in the center of our living room.

Oh the suffering.