A true story that is almost unbelievable.
I was out cutting trees and accidentally dropped my neighbor’s power line the other day. I let him know, and told him I’d take care of getting it re-hung. All I would need to do is call the power company to come out and re-hang it safely. While embarrassing, it was no big deal. He was cool and thanked me for owning up to it.
I called it in, saying my neighbor’s line fell from a tree branch, but left my involvement out of the story. Soon, a strong, independent female from the utility company arrived solo in her truck to fix it.
She saw me loading my car with furniture, and IMMEDIATELY ran up to me, swearing and exasparated, saying she would be unable to re-hang my neighbor’s power line since his house has old asbestos tile siding, and she was afraid of it. I told her I am just the neighbor. Asbestos siding is pretty common in my town, and I found it hard to believe they just leave power lines on the ground if a house has historic siding. She said her employer provides her with masks for these sorts of jobs, but she didn’t like them since she insisted the masks don’t filter out asbestos. She continued to be histrionic so I wished her luck and went inside my house.
Within about sixty seconds she was pounding on my BACK DOOR, and continued to do so for several minutes. She was just as frantic, saying she needed me to do the repair for her so she wouldn’t have to breathe in any asbestos. It was total bullsh*t. She said that either I had to do it (since I was the only man in sight–my words), or maybe my neighbor could hire someone to drill a tiny little hole into his siding and she would return to hang the wire, or something, but she was going to refuse to do the repair. Well since it was in my interest to help out, and get this repari done as quickly and quietly as possible, and I saw it was a super easy job, I said fine, if you have a drill I will climb your utility ladder and drill the hole, and you stretch the wire. She agreed, shaking in her boots.
We walked back to her truck which was blaring electronic dance music. She told me stories about her father who died but had breathed in asbestos one time decades ago. She handed me her P100 mask, which by the way, is rated to filter out asbestos. I grab her ladder from the truck and off we went to have me, a normal guy, hang a power line for the utility company.
Her involving a random passer-by in the process to that extent was irresponsible. Also the relationship she has with her employer, and her grasp of safety protocol, was none of my business. The only reason I played along was that I had promised my neighbor I’d make sure it was taken care of, and at this point the utility company was clearly failing. I saw it was a simple repair and also saw it as a unique learning experience to see how it’s done up close.
Well, we got to the attachment point and guess what? There was already a hole there since the line was previously connected. The crazy bitch climbed the ladder with me watching her as her assistant. I handed her hook to her, which she threaded through the siding and into a stud. She got out a nylon rope bundle with two pulleys attached to it, attached one end to the house and the other to the power line, then pulled the wire tight. The end.
I went back inside my house and watched her gab with the neighbor lady about gossip and recipes and whatnot for another half hour before she drove away.
"Once you’ve taken care of the basics, there’s very little in this world for which your life is worth deferring." -David Hansson. "It’s not when women are mean or nasty that anything is out of the ordinary. It’s when they are NICE to you that you have to be on high alert..." -Jackinov.
Stealth 22 seconds ago.
