Enough!

I think I'm in the mood. Being in the mood is not necessarily a good thing just means that I'm irritated for one reason or another and not necessarily aware of that fact. But, aware enough to the point that this morning when I check mail there was a business, windowed envelope from KUER one of the local public radio stations in the Valley here. I traditionally have listened to this particular channel since they are the NPR affiliate. However I don't know what it is to be the whole impeachment thing, the rearranging of the schedule so it's hard to find any of the shows I traditionally have listened to or maybe, just maybe it's one more solicitation envelope from a private nonprofit begging for money. I don't mean to be a tear here but I'm just getting sick and tired of my public radio station weaseling more and more money out of me. It's bad enough like a suffer at least two fundraising weeks a year that seems like a lot more than that when they try to throw in a “flash” fund drive somewhere in between the two traditional fund drives.

I pulled a letter out of my mailbox ground my teeth a little bit that did the throat ground then made a commitment to myself that I'm just going to stop the five dollar a month payment I give these guys. I know it's just a pittance 60 bucks a year but I've had enough. Even the whole “sustaining thing” irritated the snot out of me. Granted I'm cheap enough but also the 20 bucks during the pledge drive to get a free coffee mug or subscription to the New Yorker magazine or whatever they're willing to give up. The whole sustainability thing as a gimmick and I understand that and 60 bucks is more than 20 bucks but it's 40 bucks more than I want to give my public radio station. And I think just the suffering to pledge drives a year was worth 40 bucks but no more!

I'm going to open the envelope and use their own envelope (without a stamp I see) and write them a letter back telling them I'm down sustaining the program. Even if they go down the tubes without my 60 bucks (which I seriously doubt is going to happen). I have long past the point where I feel guilty withholding my funding stream. I mean they totally messed up my viewing schedule. Who has time to listen to the Market Place at 3 in the afternoon? Luckily, I can usually snatch the WNYC broadcast at 4:30 PM. If I missed that I can usually scrounge around around 8 o'clock or 9 PM to find a podcast version regardless of the pain in the butt. I don't need this hassle. The local affiliate for NPR is even started messing up their own shows. We really are bit self-righteous going from regular programming to just podcasting but still unclear about all of that.

I opened the document up thinking surely it's going to be another gimme, gimme, gimme but actually it was my year-end document indicating how much I paid into the station over the year. In this case, as noted, 60 big ones! Removed painlessly from my checking account every month. Five bucks, zip gone! I guess I'm a bit chagrined but not enough to stop this process. I'm going to stop my monthly sustainable contribution. I don't care anymore and you know what?I feel kind of good :-)