Somewhere along the line, things got seriously out of whack. Once upon a time, home cinemas were the exclusive preserve of those who had indoor bowling alleys and monkey butlers. Not anymore. The default setting for television sets is now ginormous. It used to be the only time you saw a screen that big, it was surrounded by world leaders and they were watching a threatening message from some mutant super-villain demanding a mega ransom. Now people routinely sit and watch old episodes of Gardening Australia on screens that swallow their living room wall without so much as a second, third or even fourth thought. Things have changed.
Somewhere along the line, things got seriously out of whack. Once upon a time, home cinemas were the exclusive preserve of those who had indoor bowling alleys and monkey butlers. Not anymore. The default setting for television sets is now ginormous. It used to be the only time you saw a screen that big, it was surrounded by world leaders and they were watching a threatening message from some mutant super-villain demanding a mega ransom. Now people routinely sit and watch old episodes of Gardening Australia on screens that swallow their living room wall without so much as a second, third or even fourth thought. Things have changed.
Just as a really expensive watch is water resistant to three hundred metres, my father is change resistant to a far greater depth. Flat screens are not for him – he likes to rock it old school style. In the hands of others, his approach to technology would be considered a masterful postmodern statement steeped in irony rather than a refusal to accept that the world has moved on. That he is slow to embrace the new is no bad thing. But there comes a point when confronting change becomes inevitable.
There’s an old saying: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. My father, however, takes a more extreme approach and refuses to admit that something is clapped out and busted, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. It’s a trait that I have inherited. A couple of years ago, I was driving through Healesville when an unholy noise that sounded like a cross between two pieces of metal arguing with each other and the last Lady Gaga album screamed from beneath the bonnet. But despite such a symphony of disaster, I vehemently denied there was anything wrong right up until the moment that smoke and flames and a catastrophic loss of power rendered my denial somewhat redundant.
In the corner of my father’s living room it sits. Once it would have been considered large. Now it would best be described as a Tyrannosaurus TV; an absolute dinosaur. It occupies a space in a wooden cabinet. Grey and shaped like a small hippopotamus, it’s kind of like a shrine. But age has wearied it, just as age does all of us at some point. If there’s a program you want to watch, you must factor in some vital ‘warming up’ time and turn the set on early. But no amount of time will save it entirely. Even if given a decent period to gather its thoughts, when a picture emerges, it is with a distinctly greenish hue. I’d go so far as to say everyone on screen looks as if he or she is part through transforming into either the Incredible Hulk or Kermit the Frog. Not that my father would ever admit as much.
We decided to take matters into our own hands. My father was away for the weekend and we decided to make a decisive move. But there were some challenges, not least of which was the fact that whatever we bought had to fit into the existing cabinet. Replacing his television was one thing; throwing out his cabinet and drilling holes into his plaster might transcend thoughtfulness and be interpreted as a declaration of war. We headed into Frankston.
It’s been ages since I’ve bought a TV. A few things became clear very quickly – firstly, it’s no surprise that people mostly have gigantic televisions these days because that’s the only size in which you can buy them. It’s like wandering into one of those clothing shops that caters solely to the plus-sized person. The world has turned to the ‘Solway’ brand of thinking in which the sizing starts at ‘really big’ and just gets bigger. Smaller TVs aren’t made for the living room. Instead, they’re made for the bedroom, the pantry, the thunderbox and whatever other nook or cranny people think they can’t survive without a TV. But these were too small for the cabinet. The next size was, alas, too big. In Goldilocks terms, we needed the one in the middle that was ‘just right’.
It was the last of its kind – the final remnant of a discontinued line, the likes of which would never be seen again. Not so small that it would be swallowed by the gaping cavity of the cabinet and not so big as to not fit in. It was, in a word, perfect. But only upon our return to Tyabb did the enormity of the task we’d taken on become apparent. To install the new flat back television, we first had to remove the old one. I tried to move it forward in the cabinet without success. With all my might, I dragged it. As it sailed over the lip of the wood and the full burden of TV took hold of my shoulders, I realised that this thing might well weigh more than my first car. In its place, we plugged in the new set and tuned it, making sure everything worked as it ought to. After hours of effort, our mission was complete. I’ve never felt so proud.
He rang, of course, to thank me. In the next breath he asked whether my brother had helped. I was insulted. As an adult, I am perfectly capable of installing and tuning a television by myself. Especially if my wife does all the difficult stuff. Suddenly flatter than the screen in my father’s living room, my pride felt like a fat-backed idiot box, cast upon the nature strip of life. But that’s okay. Sometimes you need to consider the big picture. A task now that is now easier than ever.