Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Defect Queen

Right before the Superbowl Joe decided to buy a new TV. We needed another TV almost as much as we need our own space shuttle, but he insisted that it was something we couldn't live without because this wasn't your everyday TV, oh no, this was an LCD HD TV. Is that enough letters for you? Because as soon as he said it I asked if that included the t-e-q-u-i-l-a that would be needed for him to explain this to me and that was clearly going to have to wait a few months.
He sighed and ordered his new alphabet-happy TV.
After chasing down the UPS guy to get our new TV, he was more than eager to hook 'the girl' up in our room. After 4 hours, he had it mounted, the old TV stored very conveniently in the middle of the living room (he had wanted to set down in the bathroom 'for a few minutes') and was ready to set up our new TV.
He turned it on and after 5 seconds it shut itself off.
For an hour he sat there and turned it on and watched it shut itself off.
He looked like someone just kicked his puppy.
We now, finally, have a new working alphabet-happy TV.
I recently bought David one of those Leap Frog Alphabet refrigerator thingies. When we got home he was so excited to play with his 'lebbers' that I immediately took it out of the box.
It was rather disappointing when 'D' said 'F', 'L' said 'Z', and so on.
David looked at me and just said 'No'.
We tested the next one in the store to make sure it worked. I was tempted to keep the broken one because I thought it was pretty damn funny but then I thought about David's first day of kindergarten and thought.... maybe not so much.
In 3 years we've been through 4 treadmills. It's not like they get hard use or that they are some cheap model, it's just that we seem to be magnets for the defective and broken.
I know that when we go to rent movies, we'll get at least one out of the 3 we always rent that will be scratched and end up skipping over the good parts.
I think it's just a given for us that we will know every crack in the counter at the customer service desks of many stores.
It never bothered me until I realized that I was doing it with my pregnancies too.
Because even though things have been going well enough (OK, by the standards of my last successful pregnancy which is to say, freaky but hanging in there), even though there is a heartbeat, even though I know I can feel this baby move? I don't trust it.
Even as he or she is doing flips on my bladder and pressing it's little body against my abdomen so that there is no doubt that they are alright, I don't believe it. I list all the other things it could be. Gas. Wishful thinking. A mental breakdown. Alien possession.
And I hate that. I wish I could believe it. I wish I could picture us a family of 5 and know that that is what we will be in a few months.
But I can't.