I hate talking on the phone with a representative from the cable company.  It seems like they are always misleading.  That’s part of the reason that I became a cord cutter several years ago.  And usually I’m pretty good at not answering my phone when they call me to try to sell me services I don’t want.  But they caught me last week and I found myself on the phone with the cable people.

They tried to offer me a “great deal” to add cable television to my internet plan, keeping my costs basically the same.  Having been down this road before, I asked them to expand on what they meant by “basically the same.”  I asked specifically what would happen to the price if they were to add in taxes, fees, and the cost of renting a cable box.  Then “basically the same” turned into “only a few dollars more per month.”

I didn’t stay on the phone long enough to find out exactly what “a few dollars more” actually translated to.  I just declined.  Because “a few dollars more” is too much for me to pay for something I don’t want.  I don’t want cable.  I like having to carefully choose what television shows I use to escape life.  Hulu and Dish Sling and Netflix give me all of the TV I could possibly need.  Cable would load me up with excess channels I don’t care about.  It would burden me with an electricity sucking cable box.  And it would make it difficult for me to unburden myself from the cable company when whatever promo deal they were trying to sell me expires and they jack up the price (it took me about 40 minutes on the phone to cancel cable in the first place!).

I just said no.  They tried to tell me it was a deal I couldn’t afford to decline.  But any price at all is simply way too much when you are paying it for something you don’t want or need.  There’s a big difference between a bargain price and a burden.  Wise people can recognize the difference.