i suppose cartoons are supposed to be mostly funny, though sardonic probably fits the bill too. this might be funny if it weren’t true.
a friend of mine texted a couple days ago to tell me she had bought a peach. one peach. it was $1.02 and it was not even ripe yet.
we bought our favorite jam at the least expensive grocery store. bonne maman mixed berry. it was $5.99.
one 28 ounce can of hunts crushed tomatoes is now $2.49. a minute ago it was $1.49.
20 said the vine-ripe tomato was $3.00. for one.
the guy at the meat counter picked up a steak. he looked at us and sighed, “how did this get so expensive?”. the little boy with him pushed closer to us and piped up, “have you heard of inflation?”
our gas and electric bill is on the budget plan. we are ridiculously frugal. we are cold in the winter and hot in the summer. it is $326/month.
our internet/cable/phone bill was $213 and seemed to be continually rising. in an attempt to pare down, i spent what seemed like half my life last week on the phone with them. it is nearly impossible to lower costs with this company. i have had their service the entire time i have lived in this house. 34 years.
were i to be a new customer, customer service said there would be many options from which i could choose. but – as a three-plus-decade customer – there are not. i can eliminate all my channels but 15 and save about $10. and what about my loyalty??
they transferred me to the retention department. i wonder why.
so a few years back – for a little bit of time – we would get our netflix fix by signing into the mom-we-never-met-in-los-angeles-account-whose-son-was-the-ex-boyfriend-of-the-ex-boyfriend-of-our-son. it feels like we should send her a thank-you note for those times watching “parenthood”. i’m sure she is lovely; her son is delightful. we were grateful for the path in during a time in a place we had no cable and were mostly watching dvd movies we brought home from the tiny library. we didn’t miss tv. and, though we are back to having cable for years, we don’t really miss it now. it’s about time to shut it down.
i sent the picture of the fallen antenna and its hulking thirty-foot-plus tower to our children, and my son, incredulously (or was that with a hand smacking his forehead over our caveman existence), asked, “was that even something in use anymore?” to which i reassured him that we were certainly not in the darkest of ages and that it was purely decorative. i do, however, know that there are people still using some kind of antenna in some capacity. it’s just not us.
netflix recently announced that they are reconsidering the way they are selling their service. they are trying on a new program where you can’t glom onto someone else’s netflix to watch – across the street, across town, across the country. it would seem that they are changing the rules midstream, but i guess ya gotta make money. because i am idealistic, i’m certain that spotify will follow and so will rhapsody and dish and apple music – a sudden conscience burst of everyone-has-to-pay-appropriately-for-what-they-stream….eh, it’s doubtful.
everyone is on someone’s netflix. everyone is using someone else’s cable sign-in. everyone is on someone else’s amazon and someone else’s cellphone bill. it’s a thing called survival.
i was on the phone with the car insurance company. i had gotten the new premium billing for the next six months and it had gone up 20%. twenty percent. now, that’s a lot considering the age of our vehicles, the amount of driving we don’t do, the fact that (knock wood) we have not had any incidents, our clean driving records (knock wood again). i asked what the justification was for the abrupt rise in cost, particularly after years of decreasing premium costs for good behavior et al.
the woman on the other end of the phone was lovely and explained “inflation” to me. i calmly retorted back, “so, the insurance company is responding to inflation by increasing premiums 20% while recognizing income is not growing in any manner near that.” she paused and drawled, “you know, i couldn’t agree more.” it was not without glee i got the increase down to 10%. but even then, i was still a bit disgruntled. when was your last 10% raise?
the time-before-the-last-time i called spectrum (our cable company) and asked for a review of our service and billing, i made it abundantly clear that i was looking to lower our cost. after a long period of time on hold – during which i listened to some beauteous piano-cello music – the rep came back on the phone and excitedly (this was contrived, i’m sure) told me that she had a great new deal for me. with unmatched enthusiasm she described the new deal…all the channels and services and blah-dee-blah…ending with “shall i sign you up?” naturally, this did not include the price. and for good reason. when i inquired about the pricing, she told me the cost of the package. it was $35 MORE than our current package. more. to clarify: more.is.not.less. i was speechless for a moment, trying to think of anything positive to say. i uttered “nothankyou” (twice to make sure the recording got it) and hung up.
soon it will be time to cut the cable. we watch very little tv. and that which we want to watch we can likely purchase in an app or something. i’ll have to ask my son.
because the days of being gathered in the living room around the tv watching “mary tyler moore” or “gidget” or “hogan’s heroes” or “petticoat junction” or “growing pains” or “three’s company” or “golden girls” or “cheers” or “friends” or “home improvement” or “everybody loves raymond” are kind of passé.
master marsh was right. the photo of our tv antenna demise should be labeled “the death of broadcast television”.
reverse threading 