Where Have We Come From?

I, The Television

How did I wind up in the parts shop?
Because of a cruel twist of fate.

My story is the kind that new stations would broadcast when they're not discussing natural disasters, mass shootings, or water-skiing squirrels. A tragedy that would garner viewer sympathy, the tale of a television unfairly dismissed as "Worthless".
Too bad all of the newsstations are run by Masters, who can't ever find out...
And too bad that I'm trapped here, and the only ones I can tell about this are my fellow prisoners, the drills, and Pyrostanum.
Well, and I can tell you:

My Mistress was an elderly woman who, for reasons I could never understand, owned almost 20 cats (To be precise, she had nineteen).
She did her best to take good care of those cats, and somehow also found the time to watch a lot of TV as well.
I remember vividly the golden nights spent with her staring at my screen, watching the news or talk shows. Sometimes, for some inexplicable reason, she would also watch children's shows.

Although, now that I think about it, the real inexplicability is that kids shows were on at 11 PM.
Maybe it's how the broadcasters deal with programs they don't want to show but can't drop for contractual reasons?

I spent many years with my Mistress... many glorious years.
And then, one September day, it was all taken from me.

I awoke, as the red light of the sun was streaming from the window, to a knock on the door. Mistress was lying asleep on the couch in front of me, her body covered by a blanket.
The knocking became louder. Mistress didn't awaken. From what I'd heard from some of her other appliances, which she'd had for much longer than me, she'd always been a heavy sleeper. I could see that old age had made that worse...
I heard the sound of a key turning in a lock.
It was Paige, Mistress's daughter. She had a key to her mother's house.
I had no idea why she was calling at that time; I still don't.
"Mom?" Paige called as she walked into the house. "Mother?"
She walked into the living room, which was where I was; I hid my face and held still.
"Mom? Oh, there you are!"
She approached Mistress.
"C'mon, wake u-"
She drew the blanket off Mistress.
She let out a yelp and stepped backwards. Then she tripped over a cat.

Because of Mistress's age-induced poor eyesight, she had moved my stand rather close to her couch.
Close enough that when Paige toppled backwards, the back of her head went right into my screen.
Luckily for her, Paige only sustained superficial cuts, though, had one shard been just an inch to the right, she might've lost an eye.

In the whirlwind of events that followed, I learned that Mistress had died in her sleep. And... uggh, I can't even say it...

Mistress's possessions were distributed to her remaining family members. For a week or so, it seemed like I would be sent directly to the junkyard because of my condition.
But Paige eventually owned up to the fact that she was the reason I was broken.

She tried to send me to a repair shop, but was informed that they did not take televisions of my brand and model. She tried a few more, and got the same response.
Eventually, in desperation, she tried a local repair shop that had a reputation of being... not the greatest. They agreed to fix me, but warned her that it would take a long time.
I spent an indeterminate amount of time in a dusty basement with a few other broken or defective appliances.
Then, just a few days or so before I was set to be repaired, the unthinkable happened.

It seems that the shop had been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy for quite a while, and on Monday, April 18, 1987, it finally fell over the edge.
The sleazy owner sold all of us repairees to chop shops like Elmo St. Peters's, and then disappeared with the money.

What are they doing?
Wha-?
It... worked?
How-?

Aiyaia and Victor are knocked unconscious! Pyrostanum is nowhere to be seen...

The refrigerator bashes the door straight out of the wall!

Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!

The Next Day...
I'm setting off to find a repair shop. I know that none of the good ones would take me, but I have to try. I need to try if I ever want to have a Master again...

A Few Days Later...
The repairman slides the new screen into place and screws it in.
He then tests his work by plugging me in and turning me on.
I started to play the news channel that I was tuned to on that awful day. The newscasters are talking about some typhoon in the Philippines...
Satisfied with his work, the repairman switches me off, unplugs me, and walks away to grab something.
I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be whole... How sweet the feeling of capability was...

He attaches a price tag to me, and carries me over to a shelf in the room in the front of a shop.
I'm placed down next to a can opener and a radio.

Right before I was repaired, I'd been talking to Phosphor, the mechanic's work lamp. 'E said that repair shops had kept turning me down because my model uses a very specific and discontinued kind of picture tube.
But then, two months ago, the company that made my kind of picture tube had started making new ones for... some reason.
Maybe because selling parts needed to repair TVs suddenly became profitable again?

A Mistress walks into the shop. I hide my face.
She walks over to me and examines my price tag, then thumbs through her wallet.
She picks me up and carries me over to the counter.
A quick exchange of cash later, she's carrying me out to her car.
I have a new Mistress. A new home. A new life.

This is Tiv Taylor Farnsworth, signing off.