Goodness.  I have to say I'm not surprised though, apparently many people who consider themselves 'poor' have satellite TV and eat out every night.

Even so, that is pretty sad, that people would value TV more than keeping their house in order.

I wouldn't be surprised. I work for at&t in the sales department, well we make frequent calls to Florida (Floridians are the most stubborn people I have everspoken to. No offence if you are from Florida) and we are trying to get people to get new services as well as to upgrade their existing services, and well there was a certain customer that I was speaking to and he lived on Lincoln Drive in Miami. For those of you who don't know Lincoln drive contains some of the most upscale shops EVER. And this man was telling me he couldn't afford to pay an additional $5 a month for the fastest DSL we have.

Let me break this down,

This guy Lives on Lincoln Drive where he pays around $1,600 for just plain rent at his house or apartment, he is driving a 2008 BMW 5 series, his yearly income as a DOCTOR (I know because he had specifically ordered MD be put at the end of his name, and when asked he stated he was a doctor) is probably around $125,000 to $150,000, and he had told me he wanted the best services that he could get as well as uverse, but when he told me he didn't want to pay an additional $5 a month for a 6.0 mbps, dedicated, DSL connection, I refused to sell him anything. Once he asked me why I wasn't going to sell him anything, I told him that if he couldn't pay an additional $5 per month why should I believe that he would be able to pay an additional $112 that he had already ordered. So after I told him that, he decided to tell me that he was being cheap and just didn't want to upgrade the internet so I decided to just cancel his order altogether and told him I would call back when he felt less cheap. Well he called ME back 2 days later and he had ordered the service as I told him he was going to get and he put up no fights when I told him that I was upgrading his internet. So I still got the sale, but not before I got into loads of trouble. When I was questioned about it at work. I responded with "I give it a week before he decides to come to his senses." And I was right. The moral was, If you're cheap, someone will get you

well, referring to the original story, we must not be so quick to judge - i mean the family might have gotten the TV off of some rich dude who felt generous that christmas - that would explain the cable too.

And we shouldn't stop being generous and helping the less fortunate just cuz a couple of bad eggs are stinking up the fridge. The world would be a very, very bad place otherwise

None taken.  I don't claim Florida.

If you desperately needed money, would a rich guy give you a TV and cable?  Would you keep the TV, or sell it for the money you need?

I think that it is perfectly justified to judge them based on that.

Although yes, I agree that a few bad eggs shouldn't stop us.

And Jrla, interesting story there yourself. I would hate to work in any kind of customer services department, I would make those customers hate me as much as I would hate them (I have what you might call a stupidity intolerance complex).

and so is the story of america...

Plasma TV and HBO

but kids totally are worth losing to watch scrubs ya know...