Three weeks after moving in, we finally have internet access in the house. I'll resist the urge to use multiple exclamation points, lest I be revealed as overly dependent.

We'd had a cable modem in the old place, so as an existing customer I expected a fairly easy transition. This is because I'm new to planet earth and I don't know how things work here. I was thrown off because Comcast is "a cable company dedicated to changing the way you think about your cable company."

When we moved in, cable TV was already working, but my cable modem couldn't connect. A nice tech came out and said he just had to remove a filter from The Green Box Out Front and we'd be all set. However, he found The Green Box to be a foot deeper in the soil than it was supposed to be. The tech said he couldn't open it, and illustrated by pulling on the front panel.

"No problem," he said, "I'll just transfer this to Construction, in a couple days they'll send out a truck and raise the pedestal. Then they'll remove the filter and you'll be all set." Still giddy from the oxygen levels on this planet, I bought into his scheme.

Thus began three weeks of Fun on the Phone, in which we were ensured, time after time, that we'd hear from people who, in retrospect, I suspect never existed. The snickers in the background should have tipped me off.

Today, a different nice tech came out, and within several minutes he determined two things. First, it's really easy to open The Green Box despite its depth in the soil. He just pulled on the rear panel, not the front one. Thus, the filter was trivially accessible all along.

Second, he found that the filter wasn't in The Green Box anyway, but was instead in a panel in the side of our house, protected by obscure Flat Head Screwdriver technology.

So it was a wild goose chase, or possibly a red herring. I'm too busy to figure out the difference, because I'm so online now.

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