I have a telly. Can’t believe it. I don’t like TV. But I was down in the shared cellar the other day throwing out my recycling and IÂ noticed a cardboard box in the corner. Now lately I put my gas-pillar office chair down there when it started to leak stinky hydraulic fluid all over the kitchen floor, and before I came back with a colleague who had offered to help me take it to the dump in his car… someone had taken it. So I am interpreting this as meaning that that dark place is a kind of free-for-all. The box contained a vacuum cleaner.
I could do with a vacuum cleaner. Well not urgently, there are no carpets and I can wipe down the parquet with a damp cloth on the broom. But recently we got loads of little white fluffy seeds blown in and I’m sure they haven’t been helping my breathing and coughing problems this week (I say they are all caused by the caterpillars). So it’d be great to have an electrical appliance to suck them up into a little paper bag, especially if I didn’t have to pay for it and all I needed to do was get some duct tape round the flexy-pipe. So that’s what I did.
Under the box with the vacuum in it…. was a small black remote-control and under that was a big black old-fashioned TV set. (remember when they used to be called ‘sets’?). There’s a electrical socket in the wall down there next to the light so I was able to test them. Both made loud hissing noises. I went to the supermarket and bought some duct tape and a antenna cable. Now I have a vacuum and a TV.
I was supposed to get TV with my Internet from Free.fr (spit!) but…. well you know the story. So now for no extra charge I can tune in to French news and Soap operas to practice my listening. And when I have no more need of them, for whatever reason, I will leave them in the communal cellar.
There’s a coffee table down there too…