He'd invited me to watch his first widescreen Super Bowl — which was a relief. Eight years earlier, when I was seven years old, my parents had taken me for my first visit to Uncle Charlie’s. Running through his living room, screaming about imaginary monsters, I had crashed into the cabinet with his TV set. The cabinet toppled forward, and I watched in horror as the front of the TV smashed to the ground.

So today I was relieved that Uncle Charlie let me anywhere near his expensive new television!

“It arrived yesterday,” Charlie said, pointing to the enormous plastic cover that he'd unwrapped from the screen when Phil, the burly delivery man, set it up. “They'd set it up in the guest cottage out back; but for the big game, I decided it looked better in my den. The picture is spectacular! The teams are going to look huge!” But as Uncle Charlie opened the door to his den, we were greeted by a terrible surprise.

His television was gone!