with the people from AT&T, trying to figure out whether it was a better deal to get television, telephone, and internet service from them at the new place (with the aesthetic evil of a dish on the balcony), versus the same bundle from Charter Communications (without the aesthetic evil of a dish on the balcony).

Afterward I considered eating my gun, but that's a trick you can only perform once. So I descended the stairs and informed my husband that I was tempted to do something freaky: "what if I just let the people who know how to do phone service do that, and the people who know how to give us extra TV channels do that, and stop trying to save ten dollars a month or whatever by getting all these functions from one entity, gambling that they'll actually be able to deliver it properly?"

He was into the idea, but I'm going to make one more round of calls on Monday to be sure. At least the internet part is easy: x amount of bandwidth for y amount of money.

Tomorrow morning's good time: Compare carpeting to vinyl tile. Conveniently, carpeting is priced per square yard, and vinyl tile is priced per square foot. Fortunately, my mother will probably pick up the flooring costs for us (instead of buying us a groovy energy-efficient washer-dryer), so that will help out a lot. Yet I still have no intention of paying more than it's worth—whether we're "on scholarship," or not (the first estimate I got was unacceptable, no matter who's paying). So back to the calculator I go, reminding myself that a square yard is not really three times a square foot, but rather nine. Because flooring arithmetic uses one more dimension than, say, cooking arithmetic.

We're considering taking the old carpeting out, putting sawdust on the floor, and living without television, telephone, or the internet. We can communicate with the outside world by carrier pigeon. (A the H suggests that we might even release those pigeons and seal up the windows, so as not to take a chance on having to see the outside world. "Also," he reminds me, "that would save us money on window treatments.")

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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