The cost of returning the thing to the store can be high.

The packaging can be precarious; what was once stapled cardboard is now taped, what was once a neat and rigid rectangle is now kind of floppy and misshapen and getting worse every time it moves.

Besides, they're big things that can be challenging to move around. Doing it solo is mostly a non-starter.

But sure: Eventually, it gets wheeled back in through the same front door of the store that it came out of just a few hours before.

Now the real fun starts: They don't want it back. They hem and haw. Other associates arrive to reinforce the ultimately firm standpoint of "No."

You point at the return policy on the wall. You read the relevant passages aloud, word by word. You tell them, over and over again, that you're here to return merchandise.

Some smart-sounding person shows up, gives everything an appraisal, and explains "Sir, it even says DO NOT RETURN TO STORE right here on the box!"

It's not clear who got loud first, but it's quite obviously the case that things are definitely loud now.

Finally, the store manager appears. He just needs this fucking circus to end. He asks no questions, issues the refund without hesitation, and everyone walks away pissed off.

---

I mean, I guess that's resolution.

But what often happens instead is this: The TV is unpacked. It's mounted on the wall or arranged just-so on whatever furniture is involved, requiring sometimes-tricky bits of assembly the whole way through. There's excited anticipation in the air about the new widget and how much better it is going to be than the old widget.

Finally, you switch it on and discover that it can't proceed without a network login. This raises a series of red flags that you find impossible to ignore.

So you go out back to cool off for a few minutes, think about life's decisions, and Google ways to get this 2026 build of this TV that nobody online ever mentions the specific model number of to work offline without any connection.

And the missus knows how these things can go. So while that's happening, she signs the thing into the network and gets it set up with an account "just to see how it really works."

Now the TV is connected and it's never going back to the store.

The end.