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October 07, 2004-6:10 a.m. Electrical Catastrophe, Part 3 My sister was having a potluck birthday party/house warming that day also. Larry was making some sort of cole slaw with apples for the party. While Bubba was gone he offered to let me bring Diego to the party and he would take him home with him for a few days. I called him a name and hung up on him. A little while later Bub called and said that they had not been able to scrounge up the parts I needed so we would have to buy the stuff preassembled on the pole. He has been driving Daddy�s truck while he gets his truck running and I told him he would have to bring the truck with him so that we could take a trailer to get the pole. My truck has the towing package but I didn�t have a ball to connect the trailer to on it. Bubba gets out here and is putting the truck in reverse to go get the trailer from the side of the barn when it starts making a sort of banging noise. Before he had gotten there, Daddy had tried several of those balls but none had fit the hole in my bumper. It was determined that the hitch on Daddy�s truck would fit the hole in mine. Daddy yelled at Bub when he asked if he didn�t have a ball someplace else that would fit. I thought that was a bit uncalled for. Bubba and one of his stepson�s friend worked for probably 30 minutes to get the thing off while Daddy supervised. We got the hitch installed on my truck and went to get Mr Miller because he had been making a list of the things we would need for the job. I have a small truck so the kids were sitting in the bed and Mr Miller joined them. If we had had a lawn mower on the trailer, we would have looked like a landscaping crew. We got everything and the boys started digging the hole for the post while Mr Miller redid the wiring from the breaker box to the meter. The hole had to be 4 feet deep and it like to wore those kids out. In the process of digging the post hole, they cut through the phone lines so they had to dig another hole to find both ends of the phone line so that it could be spliced. It was getting to be about 6 so I went into town with Mom and got everyone Subway sandwiches. While we were in route to Greenville, Larry sent me a text message stating that all of the spouses were at the party but me so I called him back and explained the situation to his dense self and told my sister we wouldn�t be attending. I don�t see why M&D couldn�t have attended since Daddy was doing anything but supervising. We Mom and I got back with the sandwiches, they had set the pole and it was time to call the electric company. They got there and hooked the new pole up and then it was time to splice the phone line. Mr Miller allowed as to how he was pretty much an expert on this since on the job they cut a phone line about three times a week. He put the splices in a plastic coke bottle and filled the end with silicone to seal it. We had to let that dry before we filled the hole so we were done for that day. Mr Miller said that I am probably safer now electricity-wise than I have ever been in this trailer and that is something of a relief. After the crew left, I came in and checked my computer and it still worked. ~*Thanks the gods and any other responsible deities*~ I was up early the next morning and did some stuff around here and decided about 10 that it was naptime. I saw Daddy going to move my truck and remove the trailer before I dozed off. I got up later and showered and went to Home Depot to get new smoke alarms and a new surge protector for the computer. When I got home, I went outside to see if there was anything left from the day before to be done. There were still two ladders out there and left over wiring. The hole for the phone line was still there and the underpinning panels were still off. Gee Thanks, Dad! I put the panels back on, filled the hole, adjusted the TV antenna and picked up. Once I got everything put away, I installed the new smoke detectors and connected everything for the computer to the surge protector. I was up until 11:30 doing stuff around the house before I got ready to spend a relaxing week at work, relatively speaking. So much for my relaxing weekend with no home improvement projects! Not only was this ordeal stressful, but it ended up costing me close to $500 when it was all said and done. I know it would have cost a lot more if I had had to pay for the labor. I am extremely blessed to know folks who are willing to help out a damsel in distress! **Disclaimer: All characters in this diary are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, real or imagined, is purely coincidental and unintentional.** |
