She is free to plug it in herself; his refusal to do so is purely symbolic. At least, I had not considered any other possibility and am confident that most American readers would read it the same way. Perhaps I'm the one making a bad assumption, though. MarkPilgrim, do you wish to clarify?
Look at it this way: the author asks his wife if they can get rid of the TV. She says no. He then unplugs it and refuses to plug it back in for her when she wants to use it. The author elaborates on how difficult it is to plug/unplug the TV because it's behind a dresser drawer. Symbolism or not, he's being a bit of a jerk here. He made his point, but now his wife wants to use the TV and he refuses to help, despite the fact that he's the reason why she can't use the TV in the first place.
I'd agree if she needed help for the task, but "difficult" doesn't mean impossible. Her response ("I hate you") is because he's made his point effectively: when forced to compare the value of watching TV against the effort of spending ten minutes moving the dresser, she was forced to admit how little benefit they get from the TV.
Also, I know humor shouldn't be analyzed, but I thought part of the humor in their dialog was that he took a principled stand about a pretty trivial act.
