When the devil came to our door that hot July afternoon, I should have known better than to let him in.

But he was a young, earnest guy who was pitching a sale to supply TV service at a really great introductory price. What could it hurt? That he was the devil in disguise? Yeah, that could hurt. Call it a deal with the devil.

For about $40 a month, we could have a juiced-up TV package for six months. And if we didn’t want anything more than the bare minimum channels in six months, it still would cost about $40 a month. And if we switched to his Internet, we would get the fastest service. And if we dropped the landline – the telephone attached to the wall that was hardly ever used – we would be about even, trading the telephone for TV.