Kim Hill interviewed someone on Saturday Morning recently who mentioned they possessed a second television set.
Why on earth would you need two televisions, asked Kim, in a voice expressing incredulity that anyone would even own one.
We own five televisions, and as we speak, I am bobbing and weaving around Trade Me and the city's fiercely competitive home appliance stores to purchase a sixth.
I would be the first to argue that radio is far superior to television, and that just about everything that is shown on television is infantile kack, but just as I watch a favourite but numbingly unsuccessful sports team in the vain hope they might deliver, the Otago Nuggets spring immediately to mind, I love television for its maddeningly infrequent moments of genius and pure joy.
And because these moments are infrequent, it is important to have television on at all times in every room in the house just so you don't miss out.
Our five televisions are not a statement of wealth.
Our main set in the lounge, two years old and 32 inches across, was dismissed as merely entry level by a 17-year-old shop assistant in one of the big stores last week as he tried to hornswoggle me into 3D.
"I only have one eye," I protested.
"I am unable to see 3D."
"3D will still be superior, no matter how many eyes you have," he affirmed.
Which I thought was pretty witty, if heinously incorrect.
But yes, even were I to put the other four of our televisions on Trade Me, I would be stunned if they brought in more than a hundred dollars.
Some of them only have colour occasionally, one crackles and spits, one doesn't get One, and the fourth is an ageing Citizen palm-sized 2.5-inch model I use in bed by pressing right up to my nose to simulate the effect of a 50-inch plasma.
Two of the four are 19-inch tube sets, the kind you would find now in the back rooms of the Otago Settlers Museum, but each of these has a specific job to do.
The one in my office is tuned to Sky for audio, so I can listen to key sports commentaries while my wife is watching food channels in the lounge.
And the one in the guest room, which also houses the broken Pro Form 715 SMR exercycle, is brought into play at 5.20pm daily when I go in there to watch the exciting closing stages of Deal Or No Deal on Prime.
By the time Prime News starts at 5.30pm, I am pedalling like a crazy man.
Without Deal whipping me into a frenzy on the crackling old Samsung, I daresay I would have climbed off at 5.23pm.
And yes, I watch Prime News; it is sometimes different from One or Three.
The search for a sixth television set, for the bedroom, to replace the midget Citizen, has been thrilling, but constantly frustrating.
Kim Hill was right, again, when she opined to Trade Me founder Rowan Simpson two weeks ago that nobody on Trade Me can spell.
I had a promising Panasonic Viera lined up until I saw in the description that it still had a "maneul", and a 22-inch Samsung was looming as a real steal until I read that the seller was weary of freighting it out of his home town.
Call me old-fashioned, but I do think it pays to be wary of sellers who cannot spell.
I will doubtless abandon the cheapskate lure of Trade Me and pick one up from a teenager in a cheap suit at one of the national chains, a One-Day-Only Deal which comes with a free toaster or a hundred 6x4 digital prints.
Then I will have quality television in bed while I read.
And a 2.5-inch TV for my pocket just in case I get caught short in town.
• Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
