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By Krista Thom
Contributing Writer

So I’ve been living in the Stone Age lately. I say this because, when I moved into my own apartment in May, I decided to save money by not subscribing to cable.

It was a difficult decision for me. I grew up thinking that cable was a basic necessity, right up there with water and garbage removal. By giving it up, I was basically deciding to live like one of those isolated tribes in the Amazon, that have no contact with the outside world. It was a bold step, but I was cheap, and I took it.

After the initial shock was over, I discovered that there are certain advantages to not having TV. For one thing, I get a lot more done when I’m not suckered in to watching five straight hours of Cake Boss. (Yes, I get addicted to Cake Boss. And that’s nothing compared to the fiasco that was Iron Chef.) If I ever get the courage to delete my Facebook profile, I’ll have enough time to write a sequel to War and Peace.

But there are disadvantages too, as I recently found out while visiting my parents for the weekend. My parents have TV, and I watched a lot of it at their house. It was kind of like going to an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet after being on a diet for months.

But it wasn’t so much the programs that interested me; it was the commercials. Do you even know how many products are out there to improve my life? I didn’t. I could live in an infinitely better world if I shelled out the cash to improve it.

Consider:

:: I have been wasting vast amounts of time by turning on the lights and opening my car doors manually. These are clearly things that require a lot of effort on my part. But thanks to the marvels of modern technology, I can now delegate these tasks to my phone! With the right apps, I can do everything from trading stocks to playing Monopoly.

:: Eating at home is the equivalent of eating pig slop out of a bucket. I watched one half-hour of TV, and saw at least 18 things I wanted to put in my mouth. In the first five minutes, I had a terrible craving for an Arby’s French dip toasted sub; then I realized I’d rather have a McDonald’s snack wrap. Of course, the DQ blizzard looked extra delicious, so I wanted one of those. Even the Purina puppy chow looked okay.

In one commercial break, I learned more about what to expect from pregnancy than from an entire semester of senior health class.

:: I’m lucky to be alive after driving my old clunker of a car for so long. My car is so primitive, it doesn’t have a single DVD player, video camera, or LCD screen. It lacks the precision handling that would allow it to perform an entire percussion ensemble by itself. It can’t even drag a moderately-sized boulder through a volcano, for crying out loud!

:: I have been significantly under-entertained as of late. In addition to all the TV shows that I am
obviously not watching (‘tis the season for premieres, and I’ve managed to avoid all of them. Except Glee. Some things are worth making an effort for.) there are plenty of movies and newly-released DVDs out there that I’m currently not seeing. And there are entire armies of evil that will go on to conquer the world because I don’t have the gaming systems necessary to stop them. It’s a crying shame, I say.

After watching TV for a weekend, I was convinced that I was supposed to have a cleaner home, a better car, a cooler phone, and a tastier pantry.

The thing is, maybe some of these products could improve my life. Maybe an iPhone is more useful than my current phone. Maybe a Dodge Ram could help me haul heavier loads than my PT Cruiser (for all the heavy hauling I need to do in downtown Fargo). Maybe the McDonalds snack wrap could become my new favorite food (hey, anything’s possible).

But the point is, I don’t want to spend my life thinking about the endless ways in which my life could be improved. Now that I’m back in the stone age, I have no idea what things I should have, but I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there are several urgent updates waiting for me on Facebook.

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