The Cable Empire Strikes Back

I pull into the Comcast parking lot to return my mom’s cable tv box. In the month that I’ve been back home in Connecticut, I’ve used the cable exactly once. I watched a show where a man and woman got dropped into the woods naked and left to find their own food and shelter. The guy was pretty chill but the woman bitched and moaned incessantly about their difficulty finding food and her resulting weight loss.

It’s the first time I’ve heard a woman complain about that.

I sat there thinking “the solution to your food problem is obvious, dumbass. Just kill the guy and eat him. That’s enough food for the month.”

I exit my car, thinking about how absurd it was that I had to impersonate my deceased mother to get Comcast to turn off her cable. But no matter, this next part should be quick. I’ll just drop off the box and go get a donught.

I walk into a large room and see two women standing behind a desk, chatting and laughing. There’s a long line of people to my left, customers most likely. I stroll up to the two women and say “I’m returning my mom’s cable box.”

“Okay,” the lady on the right replies, all smiles, “you just need to talk with a customer service agent. There’s a sign-up list over there.”

She points past the line at a clipboard resting on a table.

“The wait is about thirty minutes.”

I laugh. I’m not gonna talk to some guy in a tight neon polo shirt so he can try to sign me up for high-speed internet access. I smile at the woman and say “Can’t you just enter me into the computer here? I know you’re really busy but…”

She glares at me for a moment. Then she forces a half smile and says something about mailing the unit via a prepaid account at UPS. I thank her and leave, walking past a very tempting trash can.

I get into my car and put the box on the passenger seat. This is exactly why I don’t have cable. The shows totally suck, but the companies pumping that sewage into your house suck even worse.