Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Kids do the darndest things

This is the type of television we have. We've had it for about 2 years. It hangs on the wall in our basement family room. Our kids have always been really good with it and never bothered it. Until yesterday. Last night, Ryan noticed some large, circular scratches in the screen. The only 2 kids who spent any time in the family room yesterday were Tyler and Cameron. Once Ryan showed the scratches to me, I immediately called screamed for them to get their butts downstairs. When presented with the problem, both had no idea how the scratches had gotten there. Of course. One of them was in big trouble and didn't want to have to admit what they had done. It took a few minutes, but Cameron finally admitted that he was the guilty offender. We had to prod him further, but eventually found out that he had popped the pop top off a can of Dr. Pepper and decided to rub it on the screen. Just to see what it would do. We asked him many times why he did something like that. What made him think it would be OK to rub a sharp piece of metal on the television screen? He just kept saying he had no idea why he did it. He just did it. Why do kids do such crazy things? Also, why did he wait 2 years before he decided to do something so destructive?
Now, you might be thinking that I probably went crazy and absolutely lost it. Well, you would be wrong. I was relatively calm, cool and collected. (I know. Totally uncharacteristic.) As was Ryan. Yes, I was thinking to myself, "Crap! (edited) These stupid (edited) things cost a lot of stupid (edited) money. I don't want to have to replace it." I just assumed that replacing it would be what Ryan would want to do. He really loves that television. I was wrong. He just rolled with the punches. He did a quick search online and found a home fix for it. You simply rub over the scratch with an eraser. It doesn't remove it, but it takes the high edges off it and makes it much less noticeable. He worked on it quite a bit last night and will continue with it tonight because he's kind of a perfectionist and wants to get it looking as good as it possibly can. I had to squint and look very closely this morning to see it. What a relief. I'm so glad I have a resourceful, calm, patient and capable husband. We don't need to buy a new television. I'm also glad that since Ryan was able to "fix" the scratch, Cameron was able to go to bed with his butt intact.

5 comments:

Kristina P. said...

Congrats to the both of you for handling it so well! I can tell you that my husband would have lost it!

Kristen said...

Oh I am so glad that wasn't me. That would be one of the times that Steve would loose his cool and I probably would have hurt a child or broken their favorite toy just to be mean. You are a much more patient mom than me.

Rosie and Derek said...

As we say in our house, "This is why we can't have nice things!"

Kudos to both of you for handling it well! I don't think we'll be getting any new tvs until the kids are a little older and wiser. I don't think we'd be quite as nice as you if that happened.

Jules AF said...

An eraser? wtf?

Erin said...

We just bought one of these tvs, and we have two young boys. I'm glad to know there is a "fix" for if/when this happens at our house!