According to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, Subscription TV Services, Cable TV and Internet Providers are tied for dead last in consumer satisfaction, with a score of 62 out of a possible 100. My only question is, who the hell rated them that high?

My first cable company ushered me into the brave new world beyond rabbit ears antennas. It featured fuzzy picture quality and incompetent service. I didn't complain because that incompetence apparently included somehow losing my account. I never got a bill. Ever.

I even called them about it. Several times. Not that I was being honest. I just figured that sooner or later I'd get charged for everything all at once. Last I heard, the issue was finally straightened out, and the bill was on the way. That was in 1974. December, I think.

Back then, if you knew a guy who knew a guy, you could also invest in a box that would get you one or two premium channels, each of which featured two different movies a week. Movies you'd never see in a theater. No theater was that desperate.

Then we moved. Our next provider had excellent, detailed, on-time billing. They featured maybe a hundred cable stations — a good three of which were sometimes worth watching — and premium channels with sympathetic mafioso and realistic dragons and implausible sex. Unfortunately, their picture frequently disintegrated into multi-colored, pixelated explosions. If you routinely got so stoned you found yourself spending hours focusing on a lava lamp or The Kaleidoscope Channel, this was the perfect overpriced cable company for you.

We switched to a company I'll call SAT-TV. Their installer set up the DVR so it would only record the station the TV was tuned to. "That's really all you need, almost all of the time," he explained, starting to hurry off.

I countered that it might be handy to occasionally record a show other than the one we were currently watching. Especially since that's what we were being charged for. He sighed and shook his head. But he eventually yielded — a model of extraordinary service in the face of an unreasonably demanding customer.

At one point, SAT-TV called and asked if we'd like a six-month free trial of Showtime? Why not?

Why not? Because when the bill came, there was a charge for Showtime, and when I called to complain, they denied they'd made such an offer. "We never make those kinds of calls," the rep claimed. The next week they called again. Offering, of course, a free trial on Showtime. Since we were currently being charged for free Showtime, I might have taken it if I wasn't concerned about being charged twice for the same free service.

SAT-TV billed us through the phone company, on the phone bill. After we cancelled and paid the final bill, we got charged for yet another month. Which, because I can read a calendar and a phone bill (the money I'd dropped on college was clearly worth it), I knew we didn't owe.

Eventually, I even managed to convince a mathematically challenged SAT-TV customer service rep and two similarly challenged managers. Their conclusion? I needed to talk to the phone company, which, they insisted, had screwed up. The phone company, of course, explained that SAT-TV was the problem for trying to collect on a bill that any third-grader could see we didn't owe.

No one I could reach at either company was allowed to talk to anyone at the other company. So there was no way to straighten this out. I contacted the offices of both CEOs. Nothing. Maybe they weren't allowed to speak to each other either.

The two sides dug in — like trench warfare. Late charges were added. Attorneys sent form letters. Then, I may have mentioned something, in passing, to a columnist I knew. Maybe we ran into each other on the street. Or maybe, I just happened to send her a ten-page email with billing, calendar and contract attachments. Everything but interpretive dancing, about two massive communications companies unable to communicate with each other. The billing stopped. Maybe the columnist made a phone call. Or maybe SAT-TV or the phone company lost my account.

Check out Barry Maher's dark humor supernatural thriller, "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon on Amazon. Sign up for his Substack at www.barrymaher.com.

To find out more about Barry Maher and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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