What's more American than a big TV?

I've held out from buying a TV for a long time now, and yet I have only experienced a single period in my life without one, and even that lasted only about 3 weeks (one of the college roomies finally buckled and rented one for the semester... I know, who rents a TV, right?). For years my Dad has been begging to buy me a television just because he loves buying televisions and his home has maxed out at 3--including one so big they had to take the doors off the beautiful entertainment center it was intended for just so it would fit. I have firmly resisted his offers in the hopes that one magical day I would live in a TVfree home filled with productivity and reasonable bed times.

About two years ago I thought that Great Age of Recreational Reading was upon me when Outgoing Roommate packed up her TV before leaving to get married and Incoming Roommate had none coming with her. Hopes were dashed, dear reader, when I came home to find Outgoing Roommate had replaced her own TV with another one that seemed to have appeared out of thin air--we kept expecting her to come pick it up, but she never did. Was it meant as a gift? Outgoing Roommate--you never knew me at all.

Since then Alisa and I have lived on a strict diet of ultra-basic cable and netflix on this ten-inch screen, and we've done quite nicely, thank you very much, despite the inevitable "Hey, that's a big TV you've got there, yuk yuk," we get from 9 out of 10 male visitors to the apartment. Apparently one of our neighbors has shared their sentiment and taken pity on us...when I came home last night from a 10 minute burrito run, this is what I found:

Surely he must have seen us huddling our friends around the tiny screen on the right and found his conscience wouldn't allow it to happen again on his watch, by golly, so now that he's moving out he offered us this giant black box that, as you can see, hardly fits our rolling TV stand. Surely he meant it as a kindness, but I tell you no lie when I say I'm going to miss rolling the stand closer to the couch when I need to see the subtitles. Strangely, I think I'll also miss hauling Cameron's equally giant TV up and down his steps every year when he insists we borrow it for our Oscar party.

But now I'm wondering...what other things can I repeatedly refuse to buy that will eventually end up falling into my lap? Let it be known, dear reader: I refuse to buy this cool rolling planter. And an iPhone. And I especially, above all things, refuse to buy this spectacular jetpack: