Big Screen Angst: It’s a Picture I Don’t Like

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and I’m watching the big game on....

It all depends.

As I sit here pecking away Friday night on Super Bowl weekend, it all depends on whether I have what it takes to get up on Saturday morning and go out there and close the deal in time for the game.

A simple test of manhood.

Will I be intimidated by the rows of TV sets flashing at me in the showroom, all carrying large price tags? Even if it takes four to five hours, do I have the staying power to go one-on-one with a salesman whose grasp of modern technology dwarfs mine? Twenty years ago I went five hours with a car salesman before buying; am I the man I was then?

If my last two weeks of TV-shopping are any indication, I’m not.

By the time the salesman has asked if I want flat-screen, enhanced definition, plasma, LCD, HD, DLP, rear-projection, wall-mounted or just another CRT, I want to scamper back to the parking lot like a frightened kitten, overwhelmed by all those harsh sounds.

“I liked it better when you just walked in and said you wanted a Zenith or a Philco,” I say to a salesman, establishing that I’m about as up-to-date as the Eisenhower administration.

“Well, I’ve sold them both,” he says, perhaps trying to bond with me.

A salesman at another store gets to the point: “What are you looking for?” My standard response has been, “If I only knew.”

Here’s the crazy part: there’s nothing wrong with my 27-inch Panasonic. I know how to turn it on, change channels and turn it off. The picture is fine. Color, even.

And yet, perhaps as part of man’s eternal quest to better himself and spend money needlessly, I’m driven to shed my cathode ray tube (CRT) and explore liquid-crystal display (LCD). It’s the same primal call, I think, that caused a previous generation of men to jettison their Volkswagen convertibles and buy all-terrain vehicles.

“Just pick a picture you like,” a salesman says, as if that easily can be done while looking at roughly 50 sets at once. I like them all -- until I see what it costs to take one home.

“Why is this set so expensive?” I ask, and by the time I’ve learned about contrast ratio, aspect ratio and the digital visual interface (DVI), I have my answer. Especially after looking up “DVI” on the Internet and learning it requires a special cable and multipin sockets.

Not only that, but if I want to guarantee High Definition compatibility (I do, don’t I?), I’ll need to be in compliance with the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) system. That’s good to know.

All the salesman are helpful, but I eventually sense their disdain of my technological ignorance, perhaps equating it to falling testosterone levels. They’re primed to explain progressive input capabilities and virtual sound processing, and the toughest question I can think of to ask is where the volume button is.

In one store, I see a group of salesmen across the room, chuckling, and I know they’re talking about me. They probably think I know a lot about knitting. Meanwhile, other men come in to the store and quickly engage the sales crew in techno-language that I don’t understand. They have tape measures and are walking off distances from various angles around the set. Some take notes, as the staff looks on admiringly.

In the 10 or so stores I’ve visited, I’ve yet to see a woman customer by herself. My hunch is that their husbands won’t let them shop alone, in the same way the men wouldn’t trust their wives to choose between a Ford Ranger and a Dodge Ram truck.

I confess to feeling like a girlie-man. I want to write a big fat check but can’t stop my hands from quivering. With the Super Bowl fast approaching, this is not how real men act.

Obviously tiring of my Hamlet-like soliloquy, one salesman says before walking away, “Sooner or later, you have to make a decision.”

That’s what he thinks.

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Dana Parsons can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.