If your relationship has reached the cohabitation stage, there inevitably will come a point when you and your partner have to make purchases together. It starts with groceries, pondering why someone buys multiple cans of beef broth every week, but forgets apples. Or whose fault it is when the paper towels run out (Guess what? It’s yours). Once you get a few foot-long receipts under your belt, it’s time to move on to the big stuff, like appliances. A perusal of an outdated issue of Consumer Reports, a trip to Sears, and you’ll likely end up in a combat mission that threatens your entire relationship, because anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that a front-loading washer is the only way to go.
If you are a cohabitating person, you’ll probably enjoy this Verge article, which tells the story of a couple’s ill-fated acquisition of the Samsung UN40K6250AF, a.k.a. the “curved TV.” The TV was purchased by Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel. His wife, Rebecca Molln, is so enraged by this purchase that her husband lets her take over the review. The main problem, as you might expect on a curved TV, appears to be the glare:
The glare is ridiculous. It’s so completely terrible that I give up after watching something for 30 seconds and walk away whisper-yelling swears at my sucker of a husband for bringing this piece of shit into my home. This television makes me hiss in anger… On a sunny day there is exactly one cushion on our gigantic 12-person sofa from which you can see the picture on this stupendously awful television.
Molln concludes with “I hate it so much,” a concept relatable to couples of all stripes. But you know, the purchase process never ends. After appliances, there’s bound to be a trip to a car lot, where someone we know wound up with a mini-van because her husband insisted that he looked “cool” in it. (He doesn’t. Nobody looks cool in a mini-van.)