Television? You must be joking....

Last June my wife-to-be moved into the duplex that we currently occupy-- I joined her after our wedding in October. Before she moved in, we were going through the fun process of transferring all of the utilities to the new address, and paying the exorbitant fees associated with this. (Quest charges nearly $30 to do this procedure. Have I told you lately how much I can't stand this company? Maybe a rant for another day.)

As we got to the Time Warner cable bill, we paused. Did we really need cable? Wanting to trim our spending due to the increased rent costs, it seemed like a good way to save $40 per month. That's a good argument by itself. But beyond that, we could become Intellectuals!!!!

You all know Intellectuals. You at least work with them. Intellectuals are the people who loudly discuss the news report detailing the struggles of the working class in Angola, heard on NPR this morning. (I'm already a member, so plus one.) Intellectuals are the people who go to Starbucks and order a double skim chai latte, easy on the soy. (I grudgingly go to Caribou, order plain black coffee. Back down to zero.) Intellectuals are the people who eat hummus. (Negative one.) And, most importantly, Intellectuals are the people who utter that time-honored phrase "Television? I don't have time to watch television!"

LIAR!

But first, naturally, a disclaimer. Listening to NPR while drinking froofy coffee and eating an onion bagel with hummus are not bad things. Personally, I love Garrison Keillor. Crossword puzzles are one of my favorite forms of entertainment. I drink green tea 'cause it's chock full of antioxidants. Hell, I live in the Linden Hills area of Minneapolis, where everything is served with a side of pretense. So, in reality, it's not the habits of the Intellectual that I take issue with. It's the pompousness that often accompanies these habits-- especially when said pompousness is described loudly over a cell phone in a nice restaurant.

Not renewing cable would be our next step down the Intellectual walking path! We decided then and there to do it. We also told all of our friends (likely numerous times) of our conscious decision to not be held captive by the boob tube; we, instead, would talk. Read. Enjoy the fireplace. Maybe even turn on NPR to get the latest about the presidential elections in Uzbekistan.

Riiiight.

Fast forward to this past January. If anyone reading this is not from Minnesota, let me give you a little clue about our great state during the winter. Even though this past winter was rather mild, it's still too cold to do ANYTHING outside. On top of this, the sun rises at 8 a.m. and sets at, oh, 4 p.m. It's cold, dark, desolate...

...click....

"Coming up next on Judge Judy"

We've given up any notion of being Intellectuals. We watch Judge Judy. We watch Jeopardy. We watch Everybody Loves Raymond. We even watch Roseanne. To top it all off, we need to use an antenna for even partially adequate reception. So we can't even watch this sludge CLEARLY. Having to spend ten minutes to adjust the antenna so that I can watch Dan and Roseanne Connor have a heart-to-heart with Becky is about as low as a person can go.

Needless to say, when we move into our new house this weekend, cable is being installed soon afterwards. Finally we can watch some "intelligent" TV. And brag to all of our friends about the interesting program on Winston Churchill that we saw on the History Channel last night.

-WA