Given the do-it-yourself theme of the magazine, it goes without saying that you, the handyman, build the TV as well as the shelves. You’re also supposed to catch the wall-fish with nylon spun from your own garage lab, and assemble the wife out of raw material found behind the butcher’s shop. This no-name set has a panoramic 12-inch tube with razor-sharp picture – here, for example, it shows “Art Linkletter’s Cloud-Watching Hour,” the top-rated afternoon show of 1958. (This cloud was the most popular of all, until it got into an argument with Mr. Linkletter, left the show, and briefly starred in its own “Cloud Variety Theater” on the Mutual Network.) Atop the unit is a tuner capable of pulling in satellite signals – meaning, it gives a faint, fuzzy beep whenever Sputnik rolls overhead. Isn't that a swell TV? Made it myself. That's cardboard, you know. They're calling it "the Wood of the Future."

The decorative shell, placed on the table for no reason other than to occupy the horrible empty expanse, can be found at most aquarium supply stores – or you can make it yourself by taking a smaller shell and applying alternating layers of plaster-of-paris and shellac, one coat a night, for six years. And won’t you be glad when you’re done? Didn’t go out and buy a shell like those spendthift fools who got to have everything new.

Damn fools. Why, a man learns something when he puts his own shelves up on the wall. Learns something when he puts them up again, because they fell down.