They called in the evening and my husband spoke with them. Unexpectedly, he didn’t hang up immediately but spoke with them and then asked me: “Do we want cable for $4 per month?”
I paused. My higher self said no. Then a vision floated before my eyes: approaching winter, empty evenings, couch bliss. While I don’t watch much television, there is one major weakness my husband and I share: design/reno/decorating shows. Just imagine evenings of shared renovation bliss!
“OK. Let’s try it.”
The cable guy came. It was fine. Except that he couldn’t really fully install it and get the cables properly connected, so we had a random PVR box sitting in the middle of our floor, and loose cables around, but it worked. And wow, a house hunting show on my own television! While I’m folding laundry! Awesome.
My husband came home. My daughter woke up. And then the 3 of us were sitting there watching the rectangle.
To avoid that, we tried to confine viewing to times when she was asleep. Surprise! That doesn’t leave a lot of time. And we didn’t talk too much when the thing was on.
But still: renovation shows!!
The bill came. Would you believe it if I told you that it was more than $4 per month? Yes. The first call back was extremely unsuccessful as they couldn’t explain why our bill was more than we had been promised. They said we would get a call back.
Would you be surprised if I told you we didn’t get a call back?
At that point, we were packing to move out of our condo that afternoon for a month (reno work). I called and got the brilliant Kara. She listened, empathized, apologized, and got to work. She found the problem (a promo code not entered) and got us back to the promised $4/month. And when I told her that regardless, we were cancelling, she was able to do some magic to reduce our monthly bill by almost $40 for the next 6 months while downgrading our cable package. No more reno shows, so sad … but also no more rectangle, and cost savings for 6 months.
We’re now in a hotel, enjoying the occasional tv viewing, and agree that it’s best as an occasional bonus, not a regular menu item.