A New TV

He really wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary when he entered the sliding glass doors of his job. It was another boring Wednesday and as usual he had to open up shop. Fairly simple, seeing as how he worked at one of the largest electronics stores in the country. Most employees would take the easy route and turn everything on using the harmony remote, but working here you didn’t get too much excitement, so he made it fun. Almost sort of a race. He would see how fast he could get everything turned on, and then try to beat that time.

Shawn Jackson, 23, wasn’t a small guy, but he could move. Standing at 6′ and weighing in at a now smaller 275 from his football weight of 323, you can tell he was built to eat QBs alive. He lived and breathed on the defensive line. He was destined to go pro. A sure 1st round draft pick. One of the few to come out of the University of South Carolina. But on a game saving sack against LSU, he landed awkwardly on his knee, blowing it out. Doctors said it would take years to rehabilitate. And with that announcement, suddenly the glamour went away. Recruiters stopped calling. Endorsement deals diminished. He was suddenly the old racehorse being sent to the glue factory. Useless. So he had to resort to his 2nd love, electronics.

Other employees had begun arriving, so the morning meeting underwent it’s long drone of an hour.

‘Damn, why do I even show up for this shit,’ he thought. ‘I know most of the stuff they’re going over.’

Not only was he a jock, but secretly he was also a super nerd. But that’s a story for another time. The meeting ended a short time later, and daily operations went on as usual.

Shawn entered the men’s room to do a final check on his appearance. His hair, black and freshly trimmed. His face, also freshly shaved, showing of his caramel colored baby face. Teeth pearly white, something he made sure of. His clothes were neat and pressed, shirt tucked in just the right amount, shoes freshly shined. When he felt he was at his best, he went to his post to await the first customer. Sometimes he felt as if the extra effort went to waste. Mostly, only other men came into the store, and if any women came into the store they were with they’re husbands or boyfriends, or they were “sloppy” as he called them. Nothing really eye-catching ever came through those doors.

The day droned on, he took his lunch break at about 3pm, and returned to work an hour later, leaving himself exactly one hour left on his shift. Little did he know that hour would be the start of events he would never forget.

***

“Son of a bitch!!!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. Samantha-Leigh Cole had spent all day avoiding any and everyone who watched the previous night’s New England Patriots game because she set the DVR so she could watch it the next day she was home from the road. And now, at the worst possible time ever, the tv she’d had since she was 10 years old had gone out… again.

“Nononononononononono…. not now!! Ooohhhh… COME ON!!”

“Sam, I don’t know how many times I’ve told you since you moved out that it’s time to replace that hunk of junk,” her older sister Crystal Ericsson said from the couch, peering over her novel. “The money you spent repairing that thing could have gotten you a really, REALLY nice tv.”

“Shut up, Crys,” she snapped back half playfully.