Bumping Out the TV
More a family member than an appliance in my childhood, the television soothed, entertained, kept us company, filled time, took the edge off, and lulled us to sleep. Then it woke us gently with white noise at 1:45 a.m. Friday and Saturday. One of life’s greatest rewards was rising early Saturday mornings to see Johnny Quest or The Grinch Who Stole Christmas near the holiday. As I matured, television offered the best of sports, scary movies, profanities that I had not yet heard and a glimpse of sex.
SEX????!!!! Yes, sex.
Intellectual Competition?
Even as an early 3o-something the Houston Rockets, The Office and Scrubs kept me tuned in. Then there came these paged filled, metaphor drenched, thought-provoking machines. They had long, obscure words that needed looking up. They made references to people, places and events that I’d like to know about, but do not. They had me referencing, deducing, analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating. Evening programs all but vanished with the advent of thought through reading books.
The Poor Tube, Disenfranchised
Then our lives changed dramatically with a transition to self-employment and the shrill morning news programs that we once endured before leaving for work disappeared. A forecast can be seen on our laptops any time. A student will tell us if a hurricane is imminent, I am sure. One begins to take an interest in the cable bill when TV is relegated to fifteen minutes at lunch time, just so we don’t have to talk with our mouths full. $65!!!!???? Yes, $65 a month for fifteen minutes a day, four days a week. We have lunch out Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Why the hell not?
Well, thought I, the cable company must have a package for eggheads like us. So I called and asked for their least expensive package.
What package do you have now? Asked the young man.
The one on your monitor next to my name and account number, I presume, considered I. But said instead, The top 150 channel package thingy or something like that.
For $25 a month we have America’s Top 120 which includes USA, CNN, CMT, Disney, ESPN, E! and…..
I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we do not need all those channels. Is there something more basic? My wife and I hardly ever watch TV, but we like your service. I bumbled.
Uh, well. Ummmmm. Lemme see…. There is a package, but it is very, very basic.
Yes?
I mean you’d have only a few, like 50…..
Yes, very good. Will you read me the list of channels?
What, reader, might you do with an extra $49 a month and all that delicious time with your partner?
15 comments about "Bumping Out the TV"
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We are Tammy and CJ, and we are tickled pink you chose to spend time with us. Frolic about
a bit, poke around, and get
your snicker on. Now, get over here, so we can pet you and
feed you nuts.
Loved this! Going to review my service now and make some slashes!
Vikki Claflin recently posted..Going Out Tonight? Be Sure to Let Us Know!
Thanks Vikki! Makes me wonder where else to make slashes. We keep going back and forth on whether to completely bump it out, but it still has some use for us with certain news programs and documentaries. Oh, and it sometimes is useful for a break when I am practicing (guitar) and the squirrels are not frolicking out side on the patio.
My partner and I have lived together for about 8 months or so. When we first moved in together we decided to experiment living without a tv, as we hadn’t been watching much when together at our old places. We loved it! No television was fantastic.
At the same time, we also experimented with no couch, as we didn’t have one between us. That was mostly fine, but we decided we missed snuggling and chatting on the couch, so we bought one after 5 months. As we took our time, we bought a cosy two seater in which both seats recline. We love it!
After 6 months we had to move, so we decided to experiment with having no Internet, except for smart phones. When we need good Internet we take our laptops to a free location which is ten minutes walk away. It means we are much more intentional with our usage, and prepare any work we have to upload or download.
There has been a few occasions in the two months it would have been easier to have it at home, but mostly it’s been great for our creative outputs.
Mark Adam Douglass (@MADouglass) recently posted..Grateful For The Time Spent
Thanks for this thoughtful and eye-popping comment. I assume you are still without the TV? And I love the batching of internet usage. What a mindful way to use it! The cozy, reclining 2-seater is intriguing as the couch takes up too much space in our living room. And, yes, snuggle-time is paramount at our place too. Just checked out your creative output and I love the precision and passion with which you write. Very Hemmingway-esque. Thank you again! -cj
Thank you for your thoughts. I am glad my comment and my writing connects with you.
I am really enjoying the jovial, quirky nature of this site, and am now happily subscribed
Mark Adam Douglass (@MADouglass) recently posted..Grateful For The Time Spent
Ha! This is marvelous news, Mark – and just a few short hours ago I subscribed to yours. We promise to keep the jolly coming and turn up the quirk while we’re at it. The Holidays really bring out our wacky inclinations, so let us see what happens next. Should be big fun.
I really like this post. My husband and I lived quite happily with that little basic cable package for years, and sometimes I miss that lack of options. I mean, I love soccer games on sports channels and shows on USA, but going without anything schnazzy in cable back then really did assist me in focusing on my own creativity. It’s funny how NOT giving yourself a thousand choices for distraction sometimes means you have more freedom to specifically opt-in (and stay opted-in) to those things that are ultimately more important to you.
Megan Joel Peterson recently posted..Support and silence in honor of Newtown, Connecticut
I hear ya, Megan! I miss Animal Planet really badly especially when I am practicing on Sunday nights. River Monsters and anything about snakes really provided a nice relaxing break for my little digits. Freakin’ priorities! Yes, once you learn how prioritizing can help you and you see the results, there is no unlearning that! I used to think a lack of choices could not possibly be good under any circumstances, but I was wrong, very, very wrong. Thank you much for the comment!
I have noticed my life over he last year has been about slowly reducing my distractions, and resetting my focus on what is important.
I like your thoughts of freedom to specifically opt-in and stay opted in. It is definitely a freedom I have been exercising.
Mark Adam Douglass (@MADouglass) recently posted..Grateful For The Time Spent
I hear you. It’s amazing when you find out how much you don’t really need. My mother got my brother to install a gigantic antenna on top of her house. She has a digital converter box, and only watches what is available free over the airwaves. (Oddly enough, she gets for free some great things that I would have pay extra for to get them here on our cable service.) I’m not sure we are quite ready to pare down to the basics at our house, but we are less and less interested in the available choices, so I think that day is coming.
Rosemary recently posted..Great Reads
Oh, the giant antenna would be grand, but there is the nosy little mustached man who is one of the housing association toadies and I am sure he’d accost us next time we are out and have us fined for all eternity. So glad to receive your comments, Rosemary!
What an excellent idea! I love the realization you were wasting good money after bad, did something about it and then, best of all, are going to use that money for a date night! Or at least something romantic. That is such a cool idea. I wander what bill I can forgo to fund extra romance each month?!!
Thanks
Grace
Grace Pamer recently posted..Should I Forgive Him for Cheating?
Grace, glad to have you at the Hoombah! And thank for your kind words. They go with my morning coffee like the finest danish. We did something similar with our phone bill and our rent for our office space. It was astonishing to discover how much $$ we were wasting. I think it was this past spring we did a thorough perusal of our finances and did everything Ramit Sethi told us in his I Will Teach You to be Rich book plus we applied several tips from Trent Hamm’s 365 Ways to Live Cheap, though my ego prefers the word frugal to cheap.
Good points, All!
I just did the “what do they offer that *I* really watch?” question last week.
Unfortunately, since I don’t watch “news” of any sort, and actively avoid “manufactured drah-mah” (even in the weather reports!), most of the channels that I gravitate towards are in the “Digital Premium” package!
Would love to cut down my cable-iinternet-land line package costs, but I’m not ready to invest the research time, yet…
Karen J recently posted..Collected Wisdom for Friday 12-7-12
Thanks for popping in KJ! Yes, the premium channels. Why not let us choose which premium channels we’d like a la carte and pay only for those? Even in that common sense world, I’d still rather be responding to Karen J’s comment and all the others for that matter. So eff Dish Network.