More Cable-capades
2005-06-07, 11:35 a.m.

Pretty, pretty day. A good day to be COMPLETELY PISSED OFF. It�s my favorite bunch again: The cable company.

They are busy laying a new line that nobody asked for. Okey fine. They have to lay said line through my yard. Oookay, semi-fine, it�s tunneled underground, right? For that, they have to use a Ditch Witch. A Ditch Witch which they parked IN MY LANDSCAPING ALONG THE EDGE OF THE BACKYARD. Which is leaking diesel fuel IN MY LANDSCAPING. Our flowerbed back there is more xeriscaped than anything, but we do have baby trees and other assorted fauna that we never expected to be run over by heavy equipment not of our choosing. You just don�t typically include that in your yard design, ya know. (�Here�s the arbor, here�s the wisteria, over there�s the boxwood, and that�s the clearance for the Ditch Witch.�) Some of the baby trees came from locales outside the US, gifts to the former owner from overseas cohorts. If those bastards mow down my gingko, I will either 1. own the cable company, or 2. someone will fly their ass to Thailand to get me another tree. I vote for #1, because under my benevolent rule, the cable company would never again mow down innocent foliage.

I am hovering at the window like a bird of prey, waiting, waiting for them to show up this morning. I�m hankering for crispy cable crew flesh for breakfast. This late, they will have to be my brunch. I bet they taste like chicken.

Hubby owes his soul to the GroovyGuru, patron saint of cell phones. Hubby�s truck seat ate the phone, the proverbial million-in-one chance; the Guru found it; Hubby did not have to succumb to heart failure or job loss. We do not own the cell phone, the company does, and this morning the company decided that only the doggiest of the big managerial dogs will have company-sponsored cell phones, and all other employees must turn theirs in by 11am today. I will trot over to the Singular office this afternoon to get one for Hubby. If he ever has to use it for company purposes, they will reimburse him on a call-by-call basis. Seeing as how he used it maybe twice last year for company calls, perhaps they can just give him an extra stapler or something and be done with it. He�s happy. Not having a job-sponsored cell phone greatly lessens the chance that they will page him for extra (read: unpaid) work.

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Ok, I�m back, had to run outside to mow down speak to the cable guys, who were very nice and very contrite and very apologetic, so I had lightly buttered and simmered cable employee fricassee instead of the deep-fried version with hot sauce. I was nice. They have vowed upon their ancestors� graves to not mar any more of our baby trees, the Ditch Witch is leaking water, not fuel (albeit it�s very fuelly-smelling water), and they will replace any tiny trees that were trampled. They also found the poison ivy (in the neighbor�s brush just over the property line) the hard way, which is a small vindication itself. I also was able to discuss the location, relocation, and current re-relocation of the cable lines. They are once again trying to put the right lines in the right places, and the path for the wires to reach our house is now something like this:

And afterwards, it won�t be much better. If they cut my intravenous DSL phone line again, male appendages will be severed and displayed on spikes in my front yard as an offering to the BellS0uth repair gods. Baby trees I can forgive, sorta. The phone line�you�re entering voodoo territory.

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Lookit me. Now I need a cape.

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