Elise asked me if we should sign up for Netflix in Florida. I answered with a resounding, "NO WAY."
I love Netflix, but I hate it. I feel obligated to it. Obligated by the money it skims off your bank account monthly.
Everything wants to skim money off of our bank accounts. This blog skims money off of my bank account. ($8 a month.)
Real Networks has their RealONE Superpass and for only $12.99 a month, you can watch what's happening inside the Big Brother house live, 24/7. We signed up for a fourteen day, free trial, because, why not? The video stutters all over the place. It tries, tries, tries to catch up with the audio. My cable modem is blazing fast elsewhere, downloads a song from iTunes in one second, but Real's "Super"pass is agony. Their content, aside from Big Brother, which is ending in a month, is practically non-existent. Who pays for this stuff? We cancelled before our trial ran out, of course. Of course you can sign up for this over the internet and it's all automated and beautiful, but cancelling the same subscription puts you on your telephone--on hold. This is all so they can skim that $12.99 off your bank account. So low you won't bother to cancel! In the end, they refused to let us cancel; gave us a free month instead.
This is something I've learned... if you have a subscription to something, cancel it. No one wants to lose you and your bank account, even if they've yet to even touch your bank account. They have nothing to lose, to offer you something more for nothing. I had a free month of AOL and I had to actually cancel it through the mail! But then they came back with three more free months. I declined. I don't know why I took the first free month in the first place. I think they offered twenty free iTunes-like downloads or something.
Netflix has been lowering their price for me in annoying emails ever since we cancelled.
I can't wait to call the cable company for my new apartment. They say one word about a deposit, about installation costs and I'll say the magic words: "I'm going to look into DirecTV." Because we all know that they have the power to waive that stuff.
Just like every apartment complex has the power to give you a free month's rent. They raised my deposit by $600, but that's okay because... all of October is free.
Elise's father just bought her a brand new computer and it's better than mine! A second cable modem is an extra $50 a month. Tomorrow, I'll be buying a $150 wireless network instead. It will save me $600 this year alone.
The cell phone is the worst. (Save a car, but I don't want to think about that at this exact moment.) I don't even want a cell phone, but it's decidedly important that I have one. Why? Because, like all of these other services, it was invented and now we need it. (My Tivo-like DVR service offered by the cable company will only skim $7 a month! Of everything, it's the one that's truly worth it.) If Elise is at work and I'm at work and I'm off early and I need to call her because I don't have a car, because a car payment is $250 a month and insurance is $200 and gas is expensive, I'll need to call her. I'll need a cell phone. If I have to fly back to Connecticut for a weekend for a television shoot and I'm right in the middle of selling my new book, I'll NEED a cell phone. Otherwise, I don't want a cell phone.
Thankfully, my parents will add me onto their plan and it will only skim $20 more dollars a month off of their bank account. But first I'll need my own phone, and though we'll be paying an extra $20 a month, there will be no deal on one. I need to buy a cell phone, full price.
Cell phones are $200? Really? I don't mind paying that, but Sprint's phones are about as cheap as the candy filled plastic cell phones with electronic beeping sounds that they sell to children to make them grow up and feel they need a cell phone. Between the two Sprint Samsung phones in this house, I think there have been four replacements. They've used up all of their insurance! And only once was it because my father accidentally dropped it into his cup of coffee. The battery life on all four of these phones that we've had have been absolutely terrible. When Elise was living in Florida, I spent every night running through that battery with her and every night it did go dead.
Today, both of the phones in this house, having already been replaced once, are royally fucked up. You pull the antenna out of one and it comes all the way out--into your hand. The other, just doesn't work half of the time. Gets no service, where the other phone of the same model is getting plenty.
And this is what I can get for $200. A Cracker Jack toy cell phone. Bastards. I'll barely use it and it'll break and I won't have any insurance because it's not my plan and I'll be out another $200.
Maybe if they didn't give these phones away with every plan (so much so that I spent an hour looking for a place online to even buy a phone full price, without a plan) maybe if they were always $200 and not just $200 to make you sign a contract or longer contract to get it free, maybe then they would WORK.
One day I'll be in the hospital and I'll need an artificial hip or something and I'll have to say, "No. I can't afford it." They'll say, "But you'll never walk again."
"But, you see. I've replaced my cell phone twenty-six times in the past twenty years. Oh, and I called to cancel that damn RealONE Superpass but they gave me a free month and I wasn't even using it anymore and I totally forgot and it's been draining my bank account for as long as I've been alive!"
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