A Quarter of an Inch

Our television went out two days after Christmas. Not before, when we could take advantage of all the “super whamo” sales going on, oh no, we must go shopping for a television after Christmas and three weeks before Super Bowl. This is our luck, always, a day late and a dollar short.

After searching all the usual stores online and comparing pricing, size and options, we settled on a television at Costco. The price was good and had a lot of options that we didn’t have on our old tv. It wasn’t as big as we wanted, but we weren’t ready to fork over that much money to get seven more inches.

Now days, televisions are a lot lighter and easier to carry into the house and get set up. Not like earlier televisions that took three strong men to lift and tote. This made it possible for just the two of us to maneuver it in the truck, out of the truck and in the house. We didn’t drop it once, a clear miracle for me.

After disengaging the old tv from the mounting, Mitch set about setting up the new television on the brackets to mount on the television stand. We lifted the television, carried it to the mounting and set it on the stand. We stepped back and noticed it was tilted a bit, with one side lower than the other. The level showed the bubble off to the right just a smidge, which after measuring with a tape measure, translated to about a quarter of an inch difference.

We tried loosening the bolts and lifted one side a bit, then tightening the bolts back up. We stepped back and the television looked higher on the other side now. Evidently we moved it up too much. Back to loosening up the bolts and tried adjusting again. Now we were off more than an inch.

We took the television off the mounting to readjust the brackets on the television, reattached the tv to the stand, now the television was too low on the stand, sitting on the DVD player, how did that happen? We took the television off the stand again. Mitch readjusted the brackets again, reattached the television to the stand and now not only was it crooked, but it was tilted forward, and we weren’t drinking, YET. We ran out of time and had to leave the television face down on the cushion in front of the sofa for the night.

This morning we started again, with the readjusting of the mounting brackets. After readjusting again, we were now off that quarter of an inch. We were making progress. We loosened the bolts again and lifted my end a touch. Guess what, too much, we were now a quarter of an inch too high. I was ready to give up, who is going to notice a quarter of an inch? I put the level on top of the television and the bubble was a smidge to the right, again.

Surprisingly, Mitch was hanging in there, working on perfection. I was the one about out of patience. One more time, I said, I am about done. We are never going to get it dead on and I really didn’t care anymore. One last time, Mitch loosened the bolts on the brackets attached to the television, we lifted my end the equivalent of the thickness of a sheet of paper. Close enough.

Standing back the television looked level, close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades. And tonight there will be drinking.