Does anyone else always type in a gift message when buying things for yourself online? Partly, I do it because I’m curious to see what a gift note would look like, were I to actually send one to someone, and partly, I like to pretend I’m opening a gift. A gift! For me! Why, I shouldn’t have!

Alan’s been buying himself gifts lately, too. Two weekends ago, we went shopping to buy him a Ridiculously Big Television. After scoffing at the aisles of 40″ and 50″ TVs, he settled on a 62″ Toshiba. It’s ridiculous. It’s big. It’s Ridiculously Big. Therefore, it’s awesome.

Anyway, after a stressful evening involving renting a Home Depot pickup truck (because the Ridiculously Big Television wouldn’t even fit into a friend’s minivan), driving to Best Buy before it closed, persuading burly employees to hoist Ridiculously Big Television into the truck, wrapping 40 feet of suspiciously thin rope around aforementioned TV, somehow managing to get it into the house, hurrying to return the pickup truck before Home Depot closed, frantically turning Allen wrenches to assemble a TV stand, and heaving Ridiculously Big Television onto said TV stand, we collapsed on the couch and stared at 62″ of glowing television deliciousness.

“It’s big,” I offered.
“It’s enormous,” Alan corrected.
“It’s going to spoil you for all future TVs,” I warned. “You’ve reached the pinnacle of television ownership.”
“My next television will have to have Smell-O-Vision,” he admitted.