Dear TV

Dear TV,

When I press the button labelled "power" (on either the remote or on your box), that means I would like you to turn on. Not only that, but I would like you to turn on immediately. Not thirty seconds from now. Not five minutes from now. Immediately. (I'm okay if it takes you a few seconds to get your picture fully going, but please give me some indication that you are trying to wake up.)

This guessing game you play with me, where I wonder if perhaps you didn't understand me, and I start pressing the buttons again, and then I wonder if you're in the process of turning on, or if you received the signal an even number of times, and therefore think you are supposed to stay off? This game is not fun for me. Especially when I want to try to catch the last few minutes of the news. When there is only ten minutes of news left is *really* not the time for you to play these games with me. Taking five minutes to turn on when there is ten minutes of news left is really frustrating for me.

I realize that you feel neglected, and that you probably enjoy my touch, when I try stroking you to find that magic place where the static electricity seems to convince you that it really is time to come on, but that magic place is getting much harder to find. (It doesn't help that it's unpredictable. I only managed to find it today when I noticed the screen was dirty, and wiped it off. It turns out that today the magic spot was your screen.)

Please stop toying with me. Is it getting time for us to end our relationship? Our time together has been so brief! I would like a lasting relationship with a piece of electronics. My last TV left me after only about a month. Am I cursed? Or had you both been too badly abused in your previous relationships? Is it just that your times were/are up? Perhaps I should simply stop dating older TVs? It seems a shame to pick up a brand new set when when you older, still functioning sets keep falling in my laps. A new set is so expensive, too, whereas you older models are simply content to have a warm end table to call home.

Perhaps that's the problem? Do you feel neglected, and under-appreciated? If I spent some money on you, would you feel better? If you can give me some indication that you'd like a lasting relationship, I'll buy you a new remote... clean, probably colorful, and nowhere near as finicky as your current one. Would that make you happier? Do you not like it when I push your buttons myself? Do I push your buttons too often?

Please let me know your decision.

Yours (for now),
Noricum

PS: What were you trying to tell me the other day, when you were flickering blue? Or was that the antenna trying to communicate?