Dangling Conversations

Anyone who has spent any quality time with me, and even if the time has been more quantity instead, you know that I am no great fan of change. I will, as a rule, stick with something until it is unworkable or unrecognizable to the extreme if there is still some level of comfort to be gained. I have no faith that I will ever find a better sweatshirt than this one. From inside, you hardly notice the stains.
And that's pretty much how I approach most of my dealings with the planet. This comes as everlasting torment to my wife, who is always interested in trying something new. Especially if it saves money. Back when we first got married, the business of long-distance telephone service was very different. There were dozens of companies with dozens of plans that were all engineered and created especially to get my knickers in a twist. I knew that there was an alternative to the plan that I had initially chosen, but I couldn't allow myself to listen to the four-minute pitch that I was regularly receiving right around dinner time. When I heard the words, "Could you please connect me with the person who chooses your long-distance carrier," I simply handed the phone to my wife. She would hear them out, and then make careful notes, with the expectation that we would eventually get around to having a full discussion of the matter at some later date.
Those discussions never happened. I put them off, or rolled my eyes, or sighed as a way of signifying my ambivalence. The ambivalence that was covering up my terror of change. What if we pay these clowns and suddenly we are unable to contact the outside world? What if they take our money and give us inferior service? That would mean we might have to change again, and that was far too frightening to consider.
Over the years, my wife has managed my creepy phobias, and managed to find ways to keep her own mania for switching things around in check. Then came the past couple of months. As I watched TV, I became more and more impressed that the potential for saving money on our phone, Internet, and cable service was overwhelming. So much so that I actually got on the phone and made a couple of calls to check out the prices. I was amazed to discover that these calls did not cost anything. In fact, once the process began, I understood that I would actually be saving money by talking to these helpful, cheery folks who wanted to have my business.
My father was a salesman, and after years of watching him work, I put a big premium on being made comfortable by the person who wants me to buy something from them. Comcast did that for me. AT&T did not. The droids at AT&T were somewhat nonplussed with the suggestion that I might leave them. They seemed ambivalent. All that experience with my wife told me what to do. Yesterday, we pulled the plug on our AT&T Internet and phone, and now we have happy new Comcast wires. I am currently trying to convince myself that my Internet connection is not blindingly fast, and that I may have to give up the solitaire games I used to play while I waited for things to download. The phone service gives me the opportunity to create yet another "amusing" outgoing message. And we're saving money. Watch out if you're selling insurance, I just might be calling you next.