by Jan Vroegin

Created on: October 04, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

A Testimonial to Living without the Cable TV Monster!
We are a family that made the decision fifteen years ago to cancel our cable service. Along the way, we have saved over $10,000 living cable-free. The big bad monster called Cable TV still calls from time to time offering to come live in our home for just pennies a day. We hang up and return to our lives. People tend to stare sideways at my family and I when they discover that we do not have cable TV. I am quick to tell them that though their bodies need air, water, and food, we do not have to buy into cable to function and survive in this world!

Cable television is a droning, 24 hour onslaught of dribble. Sometimes the dribble is sex. Sometimes the dribble is violence. Most of the time, it is just uneducated talking heads on the tube. Sadly, the sum total of the majority of cable TV is tired, aging reruns, slapped together self help shows, or "child-toxic" shows.
Our home is under our control not the cable companies' control. The cable companies' presence is every where else in our lives, though. Go into any hotel lobby or casual restaurant and cable is there blaring at the empty room. Go to an NFL game and the stadiums have the cable blaring over the concession lines. Go to the health club and pre-set cable televisions are blaring at you as your try to escape the daily grind.
So we made the decision to free ourselves financially, emotionally, physically, and even spiritually from the cable monster.
We educated our children on sexual matters and did not relegate that personal responsibility to some unknown, over paid actresses and actors on cable. We read classics with our children rather that having them see the condensed versions that cable presented.
Need weather reports? We go to www.noaa.gov and see it instantly rather than waiting for the Weather Channel to loop around to our neck of the woods.
Over the years, the absence of cable has provided my children with more time to read books, talk with each other, and saved their hours of childhood for more worthwhile endeavors like bike riding, soccer, going to our local chocolate factory, visiting the elderly, and much more.
Yes, we still watch non-cable television from time to time. After thirty minutes though, we usually turn it off thanking ourselves that commercial television's worthless cousin, the Cable Monster, does not our live at our house and he never will.

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