TV-Shopping

In many ways, I'm still a kid. But that's what happens when you lead a sheltered existence--even a sheltered immigrant existence. So, when I needed to trade in my 14-year-old TV set for a new one, I brought my dad along to PC Richard, the torch-bearer of semi-sleazy chain electonics stores now that Nobody Beats the Wiz is no longer a factor. Knowing what I wanted, I approached a guy named Max, one of those Midwesterners with a perfect smile who look as foreign in Bensonhurst as an African on the North Pole. Max had a hypnotically reassuring demeanor that agreed with me before I uttered a word, and convinced me that I was right to buy whatever I chose, unless I didn't want it.

After he made the sale, Max skeptically, but gently, accepted my refusal of the extended warranty. He also informed me that I qualified for a PC Richard credit card with $5,000 of credit. He was positively shocked with this nice surprise. Again, I declined. Still, a beautiful bond was forged with the swipe of a debit Master Card. Life was great and full of happy, smiling salesmen named Max--even in Brooklyn.... Until, the box.

Max, eager to start a new friendship with the Italian couple with a flurry of alarm-system questions, hastily returned from the stockroom with my LCD (yeah baby!). We were ready to exit when Dad, ever watchful, noticed a huge tear in the cardboard. I sighed and interrupted Max from his friendly pitch, "Umm, Max, there's a tear on the side of the box."

"Oh yeah, they are all like that--want me to show you the other boxes? We don't work like that," he vouched, anticipating my thoughts, "we're not Harry's--we're PC Richard!" he demurred.

I was satisfied but Dad remained skeptical. Max was back at it with the Italians. "Let's see those other boxes," Dad said. This is the part where I usually get annoyed at Dad's officiousness, argue, create a scene, only to either do exactly what he asked in the first place, or leave and be lectured about my lack of audacity. But I, too, suddenly became disatisfied with Max's offhand dismissal of the huge fucking tear in the box, staring at me like the slit throat on a hog. Friends or not, he had to be held to account. "Uhh, Max?"

"Yes, more concerns?" Max was still cordial, but made his remarkable patience known.

"We're going to need to see that box now," I said, with a hot-off-the-presses receipt in lieu of a badge.

"Aww, geez, God...Lou?!" he called to the portly Italian man who was leaning against a camera display case. "We're going to need to see another box." Max then excused himself from the customers and swung around the box. The expression on his face changed from annoyed professionalism to annoyed apology. "Aaah, I see, I thought you were talking about the scratches on top. Sorry about that, I misunderstood."

Seconds later, a pristine sealed box appeared next to the damaged one, and I bid Max adieu, one friend poorer, but one almost certainly non-refurbished TV richer. I love my dad.