The monthly rate for the nation’s largest cable provider, Comcast, jumped another 6 percent in January, to more than $50 a month.

That was some sort of barrier broken, and it raises the question: What would life be like now without cable television — or any television?

“You can’t turn back the clock,” a friend said, when I suggested that he could just turn off his TV if he didn’t want to pay. He gave me one of those “Look who’s talking” looks.

I’m among those whose love of vegging in front of the TV is being tested by the $600-a-year cost for expanded basic, Comcast’s most popular option.

Certainly I could turn off that flickering blue glow. If I spent as much time playing my oboe, working out or reading up on current events as I do watching “You’ve Got Mail” on TNT for the ninth time, I might be a marathon runner and symphony soloist who just landed a book deal. (Well, at least I would have finished a few home improvement projects that have been hanging fire for a decade or two.)

Yet I’m among the 72 million people who dutifully pay for cable television service

(21.5 million of them pay Comcast) in exchange for my daily fix of news, sports and mindless entertainment. We pay, and we complain.

In 2004, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, headed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had heard so many consumer complaints that it held hearings to consider cable rate regulation.

After days of dueling testimony from cable and satellite providers, the committee did essentially nothing.

Last month, the same committee decided that it would put too many cable companies out of business if they passed the McCain-favored proposal to “unbundle” cable programming so that customers could select which cable channels they would pay for.

For instance, Home and Garden channel viewers wouldn’t be subsidizing expensive sports channels. But cable executives said this would put them out of business.

Satellite, an option to many, won’t work if you are surrounded by tall buildings, or you have large trees around your house that you don’t want to cut down; satellites need a clear “shot” at the southern sky.

So, I’m back to square one, facing a huge cable bill — and a choice. I’ll decide later. Right now, “You’ve Got Mail” is on cable.

Theresa Novak is the opinion page editor at the Corvallis Gazette-Times. An audio version of this column is available under the “GT to Go” link at gazettetimes.com.