Sitting beside him on the couch she asks, "What do you want to do tonight?"
"Seeing as we have no money, how about we just stay home and watch TV?"
She wishes things were different. "OK."
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
He points. "There, under the end table."
"Oh, that. It's nothing."
"Well then, we have a nothing under our table - and it's blinking." He gets up from beside her on the couch and picks up the object.
It is the same size as a toaster but there are no slots in the top; with all of the switches, dials, gauges and LEDs, there wouldn't be enough room for slots. On opposite sides are grates that appear to him to be used for airflow. He holds the box up to his ear and hears the soft whirring of a small fan.
No matter which way he turns it, there are settings, displays, readouts and indicators.
He turns it over and reads the label on the bottom. "The Happiness Machine?"
The guilt she feels over having spent money is evident in her weak smile. "I know I shouldn't have but things have been bad lately. I just thought...".
She says nothing more while he carries the box back to where she is sitting. Placing it on the coffee table, he sits down beside her. "Do you know what you have here?"
"What do you mean?"
He leans forward and inspects the machine more closely. "I mean that this thing is pretty amazing. Look here..." He tells her about each readout and what it is measuring. His explanations are long and involve charged particles and energy transfers and something accelerating and laws of physics and... and... and...
She is pleased that he understands what he is looking at. To her it means nothing. She stopped understanding ten minutes ago but he is so excited that she can't help but be excited along with him. There is a little boy gleam in his eye that hasn't been there in years. "So, you like it?" she asks over the top of his explanations.
"This is great! Did it come with a manual?"
You have a couple of things you will want to correct. TV is always capitalized and is considered a word. In the next to last para, the word excited is mispelled. I tell you only because I would want you to tell me. Have a nice weekend. You may erase this comnment.
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