When entertainment is...anything but!

My role as WestEnders Household Manager naturally encompasses many run-of-the-mill duties that must routinely be addressed, in order to keep thing running as smoothly as possible. Most of these I don't particularly mind: shopping for groceries and other sundries, chauffeuring kids to appointments and leisure activities, scheduling necessary maintenance or repairs, etc. However, there's one task that I loathe beyond all reason...as does almost everyone, I'm sure...and that is the dreaded "calling customer service". (Pause for the unavoidable shudder of horror. Everybody okay? Let's move on...)

It's bad enough when something breaks, or otherwise goes wrong, and you have to utilize the toll-free number to contact a representative--after waiting on hold for an indeterminate amount of time listening to insipid music and those obnoxious repeated messages that "your call is very important to us". But what causes my blood to boil even harder is when you're forced to get in touch with, say, your cable provider, once a year when your temporary, grudgingly offered discounts "expire", because they use this as a convenient excuse to justify immediately jacking up your already ridiculous bill by $20 or more. You can either sit back and passively accept and ignore this (obviously not even a viable alternative for me, or I wouldn't be having this rant, yeah?), or you have two clear courses of action: beg them to magically locate some other deductions, or threaten to dump them, unless they offer a new deal.

Can you tell I've done this a few times? And that I'm totally freakin' fed-up with this nonsense? As if I needed additional fuel for my righteous fire, I've been disgruntled with our service for a while, anyway. You see, we're stuck with a plan that contains a stupid number of channels--most of which are useless (HSN, along with the 10 other buy-stuff-you-don't-need slots, I'm looking at you) or uninteresting to us (most of the 24-hour news-reporting blocks), that we have to scroll through to get to the handful of stations we actually enjoy--simply because it's the smallest option that still includes the sports required by the Male Trio. So to sum up my dissatisfaction: cable has come to mean too much unnecessary filler material in the program guide, coupled with too few appealing choices...all for a distasteful price.

So I did what any modern-day nerd would...researched the heck out of how to cut ties with the Big-C. And I've gotta tell ya, folks...it was an eye-opening experience for this Gen-Xer. I admit it was slow going at first, as I educated myself on what else was out there--but it became apparent fairly quickly that the only real solution lay in the mystical, murky realm known as "The Land of Streaming". Having established that, the next logical step was to figure out which platforms offered the networks we considered "non-negotiable"; as a special sticking-point, these included our local ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/CW affiliates, which we weren't willing to lose. Aaaannnd...that actually made it easier, because it turned out that there was exactly ONE provider meeting those criteria...making the winner: Hulu with Live TV.

Whew! Sounds like the hard part was over, right? Hahahahaha! Oh, I wish...you see, Phase 2 of the process--the problem-solving portion--was just beginning. I already suspected that we'd have to purchase a Wi-Fi booster/extender to make this work properly, since our Bonus Room, where the second television resides, has always been a dead spot in the house, for reasons unknown to us. Thus I purchased one...and on the day it arrived, breezily announced to Tech Support--I mean "the children"--that I would be out for a while (at a pool party--yay, me for having such a good excuse to avoid what was almost certain to be an onerous chore!) and that I'd super-appreciate it if they'd attempt to set up the device in my absence. I was honestly...kind of kidding? Yet when I arrived back home after my delightful social event, they reported struggling mightily, but eventually (after much time and multiple attempts) succeeding in getting it connected and humming along.

Alrighty, then...that was one barrier toppled. Next up: now that the wireless signal reached the spot where the spare TV sits, we had to deal with the fact that the unit itself pre-dated the "smart appliance" era...and therefore couldn't support the kind of fancy newfangled subscription we were planning to get. Translation: time for an upgrade (and before you rush to deem this as "wasteful and unnecessary", let me assure you that I checked, and we're talking about a 9-year old item....which must be like, I don't know, 100 in electronic years. So trust me when I tell you that everything about the new set is a vast improvement over the old model.) Trip to Target: check.

And then....siiighhhh...I discovered by carefully perusing Hulu's website that even our more recently-acquired television (2015, for crying out loud!) missed the range of "instantly streaming-ready"...by one lousy production year. At this point I threw up my hands in...not defeat, exactly...but rather, acknowledgement of the fact that I could use some professional advice. Happily, my conversation with a Hulu rep yielded the information necessary to move forward--that is, just as soon as I ordered the Amazon Fire Stick to bring TV1 up to snuff. So, it arrived, I plugged it in and configured it, blah blah blah...NOW were we ready to get this party started?

The  answer was (drum roll) YES! But first, I called a family meeting to confirm that everyone was fully briefed and (reasonably) on-board. Then I set up an account, logged in, registered for a 7-day free trial, and instructed the guys to give it a real test over the next week, so we could decide whether to completely commit--and ditch our cable woes.

So far, the response has been pretty much what I expected. Husband (who is the first to frankly and adamantly declare that he "fears change") is wary of it and will probably avoid learning to use the new system for as long as possible...until he corners me one day to request an in-depth tutorial, with repeated demonstrations, a Q&A session, and possibly written guidelines, allowing him to feel comfortable navigating it on his own. Derek's reaction was a typical shrug and "Eh, I'll be away at school, so I don't really care." Riley stated that he's also indifferent, since he doesn't watch that much TV...but he did hasten to add that as long as we still get HGTV, Food Network, and Cooking Channel, he'll be fine. (Seriously...he records installments of Guy's Grocery Games; Man, Fire, Food; and Carnival Eats to peruse during his downtime. To accommodate him, I incorporated this into our package, and even paid a small fee so we'd get both of the eating-related channels. Hey, you have to encourage your kid's wholesome hobbies, right? Yep, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it...)

Finally, we encountered one more tiny glitch (so far, at least)...related to our actual Internet. With the added drag from streaming live video, the speed slowed down significantly enough to disrupt Husband's work...which can't happen, since he telecommutes and has to, you know, "do his job" and whatnot. Similarly, both he and Derek noted that during sporting events, the action seemed to lag a bit, making the picture choppy and therefore less-than-ideal. But never fear--I (hopefully) came up with an answer to that issue as well. I learned by checking our billing details--and the menu of available technology--that our ISP has enabled a data-speed increase, sometime in the past year since I last yelled at--ahem..."communicated with"--them. With a couple of clicks, I agreed to a very small cost increase...for a potentially 3x faster web-browsing, movie-viewing, game playing...oh yeah, and "employment" experience.

Ya know, I'm exhausted just relaying all this complicated 21st century techno-mumbo-jumbo. Tell you what...Imma go sit down, fire up Hulu or Amazon Prime Video, and binge some episodes of a funny show. Please join me in keeping your fingers crossed that all this...stuff...continues to behave. Also stay tuned because the next thing you hear might be the sweet sound of the official cord cutting when I phone Virtual-Monopoly-Cable and officially BREAK UP with them. Countdown commences....NOW!