There was a time when I used to type up a list every season of all the shows we watched so we can easily DVR them. And then as our queue filled up and our TiVo began to inch closer and closer to 100% capacity we would sift through the long list and begin deleting the ones we didn’t care to watch.
Our evenings became all about making sure our TiVo wasn’t getting too full and obsessing over the percentage of shows we had left to watch.
Night after night, season after season.
Then suddenly we decided maybe we should just cancel cable. (gasp!) More and more people I talked to all no longer subscribed the suck-you-dry that is Cable Television. The final nail on the coffin for us was when they notified us of additional charges for digital converters for all our older analog televisions. And we had a few of those (that were only about 8-10 years old, sadly).
That was when we decided to cut ties with good ole cable.
I don’t think there was a time in our married lives that we didn’t have cable television. Hell, I can hardly remember a time in my life without cable television (don’t get me wrong, I grew up for many years without cable and even when we did get it we subscribed to the “Z Channel” and that was only for movies. Anyway).
We talked to my brother and sister-in-law who cut the cable months prior. We researched options. We informed the kids.
And then we jumped off the cliff.
We subscribed to Hulu and Netflix. We already belonged to Amazon Prime. And we bought a decent size (and not very expensive AT ALL) antenna (Gawd, remember those?!) and thankfully I have a handy husband who (with my brother) climbed into the attic and installed it one Saturday morning.
Voila. Done.
Easy.
Sweartogawd we were addicted to television. We stressed for awhile over how we would manage without recording our shows or pausing live television or seeing what is playing from this minute until next month with a push of a button (and sometimes we still joke about “pause this!” and then we just laugh and laugh and laugh).
And now I can hardly remember any of it. And I can honestly say I don’t know why we waited so long to ditch cable!!! Dammit, all the money we could have been saving!
I don’t even think about television shows anymore. It’s as if we took back the cable boxes to the cable company and with it our passion for television shows. Instead, I have found myself reading a lot more in the evening instead of watching television. We also get more done because we don’t sit down quite as early to “start watching and clearing our TiVo”.
I worried the most about my husband. He was more addicted to television than I am/was. (Shhh, don’t tell him I told you that.) But even he doesn’t miss any of it anymore either.
We seem to watch a few old television shows (West Wing, anyone?) and we catch a new show now and again on Hulu. Sometimes we watch old reruns of Seinfeld or we start a series we had always wanted to watch like Veep. Otherwise, we watch local free antenna shows on PBS or our local news. Last night I was flipping trying to find the debates (couldn’t. Okay, a slight downside) and stumbled onto HSN and did find a cute pair of jeans I want to order instead….
Anyway.
Our bill went to about one hundred sixty – to under fifty for only the internet.
And I just about want to dance around the house jumping up and down for joy naked if I didn’t fear it would scare the neighbors.
Life At The Wordsmithery 