I was astounded.  The man had a phenomenal memory.  We bought the used freezer 38 years ago, and he actually remembered selling it to us. 

"Yep, it died, and we want to buy a new one." 

A few days later, Stan's son and another employee arrived at our house with our new freezer.   As they hauled our old one away, one remarked that our old freezer should be considered an antique. 

"One freezer year probably equals 5 human.  I guess you might say our freezer was equivalent to being 200 years old." I snickered, and all joined in an appreciative chuckle as I waved goodbye to an old friend. 

Not two weeks later, our family was once again struck with another tragedy.   Our beautiful old 27 inch TV died in a puff of smoke. 

Our TV wasn't as old as our freezer, but it certainly was no "spring chicken."   I bought it used from a TV Repair shop in 1985.  I was pleased with it because it was a top of the line Zenith.  My guess is that it could not have been more than a couple of years old when we bought it.  It had a fully functioning remote with digital tuning.   My wife loved it.  She loved it because it simply looked beautiful.  It was a great piece of furniture.   The TV didn't have a stereo tuner, but it did have a very nice picture.

It served us well.

My wife was the first to notice something wrong with the TV. 

"Bill, the picture is all wavy."

I looked at the TV and I noticed that the edges of the picture did seem to be a bit wavy.  "Oh it doesn't look all that bad," said I. "We can live with it."

"The TV is going out," moaned my wife.

"It may last for months, even years;" said I with my most cheerful smile."

About this time, the wavy lines compressed, an audible "Pop" was heard and the room was filled with the smell of ozone.

I looked up at my smoke detector as I realized that the pop that I heard was my old Zenith's death rattle.  Our TV had just died.

Later on that day, my wife and I went television shopping.  I already knew what TV I wanted to get.  Just the day before, I had walked through our local Walmart store and I saw it sitting on their clearance rack.  It had a sign reading "Sanyo, 32" HDTV, $500 "As is".  If you have questions speak to Sales Associate in Electronics."

"Look at this," said I to my wife. "A 32 inch HDTV only $500."

"It's too big," said my wife

"No it isn't" said I.  "It has a high definition picture.  It has stereo sound."

"The sign says as is," replied my wife, "What does "as is" mean?"

We called over a "Sales Associate" a delightful girl with a badge that read "Janet."

"What do you mean by 'as is?'" asked my wife.

Janet smiled.  "It means that we don't have the box.  This was a floor sample, and it's  a great buy."

"See!" Said I.  "We had better buy it before someone else does."

"I don't know..." Said my wife.