Sunday Shopping Spree

Dad had three small insurance policies which have all come in. It was enough to consider buying a new TV and the timing is perfect because we are headed into football season and that’s the only sporting event I’ll watch on a consistent basis. Seems like an easy enough thing to do. Except when you aren’t good at planning and details.

The first thing was to convince my wife that this was a thing we should do. As I’ve mentioned before, she’s in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t buy a new one” camp. It is true that our TV still works well. It is also true that it is 17 years old and technology has advanced just a little bit since then. To be fair, we have purchased new sets to replace our smaller ones but the main set dates from when we moved into the house.

We did a little on line scouting for measurements and looked at our existing stand and the space where the TV would go and wrote down a few numbers. With that, we picked the appropriate size and were all ready to go when we found a different model by the same company that seemed to offer some better technology. My wife’s corollary for purchases is that if you are buying something, try to buy the best.

Armed with our numbers, we went to the big box store and found a helpful clerk who was more than willing to assist us. We talked about the size of our old stand and determined we were good. Then, because my wife was suddenly in the mood to spend, we bought a couple of related things to enhance our viewing experience. Got delivery all set up and things were looking good.

After we got home, I was taking a second look at the stand and something didn’t quite seem right. Yes, we had somehow mixed up numbers and the new TV was not going to fit on our stand.

That meant another internet search for TV stands among the various furniture stores in the area. She didn’t want anything that required assembly which I couldn’t argue with. As it turns out, the vast majority of stands were either too small for the set or too large to fit in our area. I guess the TV size we selected, being in the middle, isn’t popular enough to generate a high demand for stands of that size.

As luck would have, we did find a few options at a nearby store and so a second trip to a shopping place was required. Our luck held up as we found another willing salesperson and a stand that fit our TV and my wife’s style. And, it was actually in stock and available for delivery.

Of course, all of the parts aren’t going to come together that easily. We do need legs for the TV so it will sit on a stand (the default for this brand was wall mount which wasn’t an option). So that is three things that will be showing up at different times and all three will be needed before we can get things set up. It also means moving the existing TV out of the area. Given the delivery schedule, it looks like that is a project for next weekend.

With all the extras including the new stand, we kind of went a bit over the insurance money. Not that I had big plans beyond it so I guess you might as well spend it all.

And that’s how we spent our Sunday afternoon. Good thing it was one of the hottest days of the year so being inside wasn’t a bad thing.