Au Revoir French Television

About two months ago our satellite TV started acting up. Some days we would have TV, some days not. Then about six weeks ago, nothing.

Not having TV is strange. I found myself gravitating toward the set, watching old DVD's, just to watch something on the television. The TV habit slowly abated and we stopped watching DVD's and started reading and conversing in the evenings (what a concept).
However, we are still paying for satellite service so we finally borrowed a satellite finder from a friend last week and another, brave friend went up through the skylight onto the roof to check out the satellite dish (no way I'm going up on the roof, three stories up!) Well, it appears that the receiver on the dish is kaput.
We had a discussion and since we've lived this long without TV and haven't missed it, then why are we paying Canal Satellite 35€ a month for a service that we don't miss and that we weren't that happy with anyway. We had talked about canceling the service back in November, but they added North American Sports Network and my husband asked that we keep it just until the end of January so he could watch the Super Bowl and then we could get rid of it. But, of course, after football season came hockey season and then basketball season followed by baseball season... Basically, we were never getting rid of the damn thing.
Well it appears that problem has been solved!
No more NASN, no more Rai Uno and no more great movies and TV shows that are dubbed into French instead leaving them alone and showing them in version originale and adding subtitles. Have you ever tried to watch Law & Order in French? Or The Godfather? Some things just shouldn't be messed with for god's sake!

So I called Canal Satellite to cancel our service, at 0.34 euro cents a minute of course, to be told that we couldn't cancel as our contract was renewed May 1st for another year. We should have sent a letter in April stating our intention to cancel and since we didn't, we are stuck with it until May 1, 2008.
What crap! When we signed up for the service three years ago, we did sign a one year contract but they've never sent a renewal contract for us to sign. So I told a little white lie and said we were moving back to America in July.
Do you have a job in America? she asked.
Yes I replied.
Well, then send us a letter stating this and we'll release you from your contract.
Phew!

Bon débarras Canal Satellite.