You Had One Job

Louise and I love to go to Highlands. We love that our dear friends, Jay and Anne, have a house in Highlands and occasionally invite us up for a weekend or for a party. We were fortunate to get such an invite for the weekend of the out-of-town Clemson vs Virginia Tech game. We were excited that Needle and Dinny were also going to join us. Needle is my favorite over-the-hill former quarterback, and Dinny is my favorite bird lover/photo enthusiast/artist.

Anne promised that she would have her world-famous hambone soup ready for lunch, so Louise and I made sure to arrive no later than 11:45 AM. Needle and Dinny would not arrive until mid-afternoon or later, so they missed out on the soup. The soup was wonderful, but I offended Anne when I asked if I could eat a chicken salad sandwich along with it. I had brought some rotisserie chicken salad (I hate to show up at someone’s house with nothing) and I was determined to have a sandwich, soup or no soup. Anne could not imagine (and she told me this in no uncertain terms) why anyone in their right mind would want to eat a chicken salad sandwich along with her world-famous hambone soup. But she was unable to dissuade me.

While we were eating, Jay surprised Anne by announcing that he would like to go ahead and get her birthday present. There are a number of reasons such an announcement might surprise Anne, not the least of which was that her birthday was nowhere near. Nevertheless, Jay asked Anne what she would think about him buying her a TV to put out on the deck. After all, one of the reasons we were there was to watch the Clemson-Va Tech game on TV, and wouldn’t it be nice to enjoy the deck overlooking the beautiful lake below while watching the game? Surprisingly, Anne agreed that this was a great idea.

“Is there a TV store in Highlands?” I asked.

“No,” replied Jay. “But there’s a WalMart in Franklin. We can get it there.”

“Well, take Claude with you,” insisted Anne. “I don’t trust you to pick out a TV.”

I perked up at that round-about compliment as Louise suggested that she and Anne could go walking or shopping in Highlands while we were gone.

“Claude,” added Anne, “your job is to make sure Jaybird doesn’t screw it up.”

“Great, I can handle that. Where are you going to hook it up and where will the TV go out there?”

They have a large deck about 15 feet wide extending along the entire side of the house, about 40 feet long. At the front end of the porch is the grill, then a long dining table, while at the back end nearest the lake is a porch swing, a couch and several chairs. Jay pointed out the electrical outlet and the cable connection at the corner of the back wall above the porch swing. The four of us debated the options for much longer than necessary. We could wall-mount it, but that would expose it to the elements more than any other option and limit viewing lanes unless we mounted it on a highly swivable extending mount. We could mount it on the dining table or on a bench that was there and seemed to have no other purpose. Or, as I suggested, we could just get a longer cable and have the option of moving the TV anywhere on the deck as the situation required. That suggestion seemed to go over pretty well.

“OK, let’s do it,” said Jay. “This will be great bonding time for me and Claude.”

We did have great bonding as we drove down the mountain to Franklin, chatting almost non-stop about the most important issues of the day. As we approached Franklin, I asked Jay if he knew where Wal Mart was.

“Oh yeah, I think so.”

I wasn’t convinced, and sure enough, he took the wrong exit. We pulled into a Dollar Store parking lot and asked a couple of local yokels how to get to Wal Mart. After they debated among themselves for about five minutes, they suggested that it might be at the last exit we had passed before pulling in there. We eventually found Wal Mart and proceeded to the electronics section, where there was a long wall lined with TV’s. Back at the house, we had agreed on something around 44-48 inches as an adequate size. As Jay and I were perusing the bank of TV’s, Jethro, the salesman, approached us and asked if he could help. I was a little apprehensive of his capabilities, but Jay immediately asked,

“What do you think is the best TV made?”

“Well,” replied Jethro, “I like Samsung, but LG is good and Vizio is very good.”

We were in front of a 48” Vizio, and next to it was a Samsung, same size. “Are all these smart TV’s?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Jethro.

“Well, do you think the Samsung is smarter than the Vizio?” asked Jay. I think Jay was making a joke, but Jethro took it in stride.

Jethro threw out a string of data gobble-de-gook that sounded impressive, especially coming from this mountain man, but it went right over our heads.

“What do you think, Claude?” asked Jay.

Trying to act like I understood all that Jethro said, I replied, “I think the Samsung will do. Besides, it’s on sale. That looks like a good price.”

“Okay, we’ll take that one,” said Jay.

Ever aware that my job was to not let Jay screw up, I added, “You’ll need to get some cable, and do you think we should look at TV stands?”

“Yes,” said Jay, and to Jethro he added, “do you have TV stands that will work for this TV?”

“The furniture department is right over there,” Jethro pointed the aisle out while I grabbed a 50′ roll of cable.

“Fifty feet of cable only costs a couple of dollars more than 25,” I said. “We don’t really know how much we’ll need.”

We went over to the aisle that had TV stands, only they weren’t really stands, they were more like small consoles with shelves and doors to store accessories. Jethro sent his sister, the furniture sales person, to help us pick out a stand/table. She pointed out a nice piece of furniture that was about $450, but we told her we had no intention of spending that much for a TV stand. She then showed us a table that looked almost identical (same shelves and doors) for $40.

“That’s damn near perfect, Jay,” I said excitedly. “But it would be nice if it had rollers, so we could easily move it around.”

“Yeah, do you have something like that with rollers, or can we put rollers on that one?” asked Jay.

“We don’t have any with rollers, but it is wood, kinda, so you could mount rollers on it,” replied Jethro’s sister.

The “wood, kinda” part probably should have raised a red flag, but I was so sure Anne would love what we had picked out that it flew right by me.

“Jaybird, we’ve got the perfect TV, on sale no less, plus a nice piece of furniture to mount it on for what the TV would normally cost by itself. I think this is success.”

“I agree. We’ll take it,” he said as Jethro brought a cart over on which to roll our purchases out.

As we were loading everything into the car, I noticed on the box that contained the TV stand, “462 pieces.” “When we get there,” I said to Jay, “I’ll hook up the TV, and Needle can put the table together.” Needle is no engineer, but he’s a helluva lot smarter than Jay or I. And he likes puzzles.

Needle and Dinny arrived at the house at the same time that Jay and I returned. I grabbed the box that contained the table, told Needle we had a project for him, and proudly announced to Anne as she came out on the front stoop that we were able to get a great TV and a beautiful piece of furniture for less than $4,000. I don’t think Anne appreciated my little joke.

As Jay brought the TV in, Louise asked if it had a swivel stand.

“They didn’t have any TV’s with swivel stands,” I answered.

“I cannot believe they had no swivel stands,” said Anne, looking more than a little peeved. I was being bombarded with questions from Anne and Louise as Jay was getting a knife to open the box with the table. As he started pulling the 462 parts out, Anne clearly was not happy.

“Okay,” she said, “the TV might be acceptable, but the table definitely is not. It’s got to go back.” Jay had most of the parts out by now and scattered around the floor and on the dinner table.

“I can’t believe you don’t like this fine piece of furniture,” I said. “We can mount rollers on it and move it wherever you want it.”

“Back at Wal Mart is where I want it,” demanded Anne. “It’s made of cheap particle board. There’s no way it will stand up to the weather out here on this deck.”

“What kind of mount does the TV have?”asked Louise.

“It has two sets of legs,” I answered, as I held up the legs.
“Well, does it have a place in back where you can put a swivel mount? Or does it not have a swivel base mount?”

“No swivel,” I answered. “But if we aren’t going to keep the table, we can set it up on this bench, which seems to have no other purpose.”

Meanwhile, as I’m trying to defend our honor and our judgment, Jay is trying to put all the table pieces back in the box.

While Jay was struggling with getting the table in the box, I connected the TV to the cable outlet, plugged it in and fired it up. I connected the two sets of legs and stood it up on the bench. Finally, the bench had a purpose. It was not satisfactory to Anne and Louise though, because the legs were set so far apart on the base of the TV that they only had about a half inch of clearance on either end of the bench. Any slight bump and the TV would come crashing to the floor. Reluctantly, I moved the TV, putting it on the dining table. Of course, we now could not eat on that table. We decided to eat inside in the actual dining room.

Eventually, Jay said,”This is the best I can do.” I looked over and saw at least 20 pieces of various sizes still on the floor.

Resigned to the fact that the table was going back to the store, I asked Needle, “Why don’t you see if you can get the table back in the box? You haven’t done shit since you’ve been here.”

“I’m not touching that table or the box it came in with a ten-foot pole.”

“Alright, I’ll do it.” I pulled everything out of the box and began reloading it, starting with the biggest pieces. After about 30 minutes, it wasn’t pretty, but everything was back in the box; at least all the pieces I could find.

So, the final decision was that we would watch the game in the living room, and Jay would return the table and the TV to the Wal Mart in Central after they returned to Clemson.

Anne’s final comment to me on the subject was, “Claude, you had one job.”

I know that Anne loves me, though. And along with so many other Tigers, whom I won’t try to name for fear of leaving someone out, they are helping Louise and me to live, love, and laugh again.