More TVs than people...

I was bored at work yesterday afternoon so found myself browsing the Yahoo News headlines. Apparently the average American home has more televisions than people--2.73 TVs to 2.55 people to be exact. Which got me to thinking about our Canadian household--our ratio currently stands at 5:3, but once my mother's little TV is mounted underneath the kitchen cabinet, we'll be 2:1. How did this happen?

When we first moved in 20 years ago, we had 3 TVs for our household of 5: a TV in the family room, another in the basement rec room, and one in my parents room. Now, there are 3 in the basement alone: 2 are my brother's--one in his bedroom, which my sister left behind when she and her fiance moved to Vancouver, the other in his living room--and the third is sitting unplugged...so maybe this one doesn't really count...

We have 2 on the main floor, soon to be 3: the first in the living room, which used to be in the family room and the second set is in the family room, which we only bought because we thought the one now in the living room was broken, but it turns out it wasn't.

My mother only began coveting a TV for the kitchen when she saw this one in a condo model suite we were visiting. So we got her the same one for Mother's Day this year. It's actually more function than she needs as it plays CD/DVDs and comes with a radio tuner, when all she wants is to be able to watch her Chinese programming on Fairchild while working in the kitchen. If this convenience makes my mother happy and comfortable, than that's fine by me because she deserves it. Of course, the thing isn't hooked up yet because we've been in the throes of a renovation and the kitchen walls were only just painted yesterday, but that's besides the point.