Hey, so, um, remember that post I made last week about, you know, kind of, like, “leaving TV behind?”

Well, scratch that.

Actually, as (the OG!) Willy Wonka would say… scratch that; reverse it. 

I am officially NOT leaving TV behind!

So, recently, I moved back… actually, re-moved, or maybe re-re-re-moved back home. I mean… “home”. I don’t know, I’ve been literally living out of a suitcase for about a year or two now, so it’s a messy situation to describe. Not that it’s a bad situation, it’s just difficult to explain. But that’s a post for another day.

Anyway, I recently moved back into one of my old bedrooms, and I brought along this tiny 12 by 12 inch tube television set that I’ve been lugging in and out of storage for… just many years now. It’s like, a lot of people look at this dingy old thing and are like, “Um, why do you have that? Does it even work? You could literally get something with more high-definition at a garage sale for 5 bucks.”

Well, I like my crappy baby black box TV. Sure, it gives me eye strain headaches from squinting at the screen from just 4 feet away, and yes, for some odd reason, it changes the channel/input instead the volume every other time you press the channel up button… but, you know, this TV is mine, and the headaches usually go away after 4 hours of looking at a higher quality screen afterward, anyway.

Still not convinced that I need to throw the old baby black box screen out? 

Well, I wasn’t gonna defend my point with this, but… okay, this 90s-era television has sentimental value attached to it. I mean, pretty much every little device that enters my possession gains sentimental value to me after owning it for more than 3 weeks, but… okay, this thing’s different.

This tiny TV was actually my grandmother’s before she passed away. She used it… like, probably constantly ever since she got it. I remember it was always on in the dining room, up on a cabinet… and she was always sitting 2 feet in front of it, at the table. Actually, I’m not sure I even remember a vivid time when she wasn’t using this TV…

Anyway, my grandma passed when I was about 7 years old, and so I inherited the TV. I mean, there was another, larger, higher quality television in her house that had only been touched two times ever before, but I acquired this one.

Yep, my older siblings each got a new (used) car or sufficient funds added to their college accounts after grandma passed on, but I got this.

A 12 by 12 inch, bunny-eared, Sylvania TV.

But, did I mention… it has a built-in VCR player?

(It only works when you hold the tapes in place for 20 minute increments.)

Now, back to the real story here…

I recently hooked the TV back up in my room, complete with two classic Nintendo gaming systems and a DVD player. But then, after a few days of not using the 20 year old television set to its full potential… I decided to, you know, figure out how to plug it into the house antenna!

If you haven’t figured it out by now, both me and my family are very old-fashioned people when it comes to technology.

Okay, okay, but some people may agree with me on this… antenna TV actually can get you some pretty decent channels and shows. Of course, it’s not as many as cable, and definitely not as many as satellite or Netflix… but, I wanna let y’all in on a lil’ secret here… get ready for this.

Antenna TV… is actually free!

Oh my gosh, some of you would have never known, right?

So, guess what? I get free TV in my bedroom now. The television itself was free (to me, at least), and the channels on it are free to everybody. The only thing I gotta pay, here, is attention!

And so, now I’ve been enthralled by the last night entertainment options this tiny screen has been giving me. I mean, I get local news and movies dubbed over in Spanish! What more could a simple girl want?

I’m not leaving this TV behind any time soon.

–Kari