Chick Wit: Big TV beats little puppy every time

The holidays are coming, and I have an annual tradition of buying the house a Christmas present. For example, last year I bought the house a puppy.

I never got a thank-you note.

I keep thinking about getting the house another puppy, but this year I got it something it wanted more, which was delivered this morning.

Here's what happened.

I have a 32-inch TV in an entertainment center that's across the room from the couch, and as the years go by, the TV's been getting smaller and smaller, and harder and harder to see.

I'm not getting older.

My TV is shrinking.

Maybe someone left it out in the rain, like the cake in that song, or maybe someone put it in the dryer, I don't know. But I'd been thinking that this Christmas, I'd buy the house a big TV.

I'd been holding off because I didn't want the hassle, and I knew it would be expensive, because whenever I look at the little ones, they seem fairly costly. In the past, I'd gotten free little TVs, using the reward points from a credit card on which I charge the other things the house wants, like handbags and shoes.

In other words, I'd been stalling on the big TV, and all the big TVs in the reward catalog cost a billion more points than I had, so I bit the bullet. I drove to the store, drawn to the TV department, eyes agog. It was dark, lit on all four sides by screens, like a TV cave. All of the TVs, from floor to ceiling, were tuned to the same football game, which was humongous.

I stared astounded as a football flew by, big as an Airbus. Linemen as tall as Godzilla crashed onto other helmeted monsters, like worlds colliding. Gigantic cheerleaders jumped and yelled, their mouths big as swimming pools, and their breasts, well, you get the idea.

Wow.

Jeez.

There was enough plastic in those babies to keep all of us fresh for days.

In other words, everything on the big TVs was big.

Plus the colors were as vivid and pretty as flowers. The yellow in the team uniforms was bright marigold, the orange like gerber daisies. I spotted blood on a jersey, red as a geranium. It was the most floral violence ever.

I fell in love.

Or rather, my house did.

It knew it had made the right decision to stop being such a cheapskate and come to the big-TV store. Its good judgment was confirmed when it looked around and noticed that none of the TVs was as tiny as the one at home, its ex-TV.

Then the question became which type of big TV to get, among the dizzying array of plasma TVs, LCD TVs, LED-LCD TVs, rear-projection TVs, and tube TVs, whatever that is. I had no idea what I had at home, or what to choose, but a salesgirl told me that if your room has lots of windows, go with LCD, which probably stands for large colossal something.

So then the only question was, how large and colossal?

I had gone into the store thinking a 42-inch TV would be big enough, because I wanted to keep it classy and tasteful. But all of a sudden, the 42-inch looked so puny next to the 48-inch.

And the price wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Plus classy and tasteful is overrated, so I settled on the 48-inch.

Until I caught sight of the 52-inch.

Which was bigger.

And on sale.

In fact, the 52-inch cost less than the 48-inch, which I didn't understand, because the 52-inch offered four extra inches of multicolored bigness.

So the 52-inch started to make sense to me - er, the house.

And the 52-inch was so gorgeous and easy to see, like Large Print TV. I was sure it wouldn't shrink for a long, long time. So I bought it, and they delivered it this morning.

With a crane.

It's so huge it doesn't fit in the entertainment center. In fact, it barely fit in the front door.

It stands in its immense box in the family room, blocking the view of the Christmas tree, towering over the couch and chairs, like a monolith at Stonehenge. The cats and dogs sniff it in fear, and I don't know whether to worship it or return it.

But I have a feeling I'll just open it and watch it.

Forever.

Happy holidays.

Big love, from me and mine, to you and yours.