As an Accountant, I am constantly thinking about numbers.  Yes, I am a bit OCD.  One of the numbers I watch is my bank account, which is something we should all do.  I look at prices of items I purchase, I look for deals and I calculate savings when able.  I recently purchased a 50″ Plasma TV for what I thought was a fairly good deal.  Two days later, in another store, I saw the same TV on sale for $150 less.   I suppose I could bring that TV back and get the other one, or I could go back and ask the original store to match the price, and I just might do that.   I guess no matter how hard you try, you win some, and you lose some.  In any case, I brought my new TV home and removed an older “box” TV from it’s place and put that one in the garage (dang, was it ever heavy).   This old TV joined the other two I had previously replaced and as I stood up, holding my back from the pain of carrying it, I mused.  My mind went back to the days when those televisions were new, the feeling I had when I got them, how they had looked so good in their rightful place in the house.  Now, they just looked sad and dusty, obsolete, bored and lonely.   Not wanting to waste anything, because, yes, at one point, they did cost quite a bit, I started making phone calls.  One friend politely declined saying he had no room for them. Another friend laughed and said he doesn’t want any dinosaurs in his home, but thanks for asking.  Yet another friend just didn’t bother to get back to me, I got the hint.   So I loaded those bad boys into the back of my truck and drove off to the Salvation Army, thinking surely they will appreciate these fine specimens and give them to a family in need.  Not so, the man at the Salvation Army thanked me for thinking of them but said they have too many and cannot store any more.   He pointed across the street to the Recycling Depot… maybe they will take them there.  MAYBE?  Yikes, what have I gotten myself into, I simply wanted to give away 3 perfectly good TV’s…. with the remotes!  Oh well, I went to the depot and they showed me where to put them, in the pile with the other hundred or so they had accumulated over the last couple of weeks.  With a tear in my eye, I said goodbye to each of the 3, one by one.  We had many good times together, but I have found someone new, someone flatter and larger and with better colour.  As I pulled away, I wondered when it would be that I would be doing the same with the new one I had just bought.  Waste not, want not, my Father had always told me.  Well, I tried not to waste…. oh well.  So, in the end, all my number crunching, deal searching and scrimping and saving for those first 3 TV’s ended me up in the same position, throwing it all away.  I am ok now, I have recovered, and the new TV and I are getting along quite nicely.  I can see a pattern here somewhere; TV’s, VCR’s and other Electronic Devices, expendable, disposable….hope nobody feels the same about me when I get old!