Carrollton's Finest

Today was an eventful day!  And I didn't even have to get out of my pajamas!

You see, we have this problem.  The trash truck pulls down the power lines in our alley.  We have lived in our house since May, and this has happened four times.  This time was the worst as the truck actually broke the line.  See.... broken line.

Unfortunately for the driver of said truck, Chris was home and working in the garage today when the truck lumbered past our house.  So he saw everything, and proceeded to chase the truck down the alley to give the driver a piece of his mind!  So sorry I don't have pictures of THAT.

However, because this has happened so many times, we are a little desensitized to it.  We know if we call the city, they will blame the trash people.  If we call the trash people, they will tell us to call the city or the electric company because the line is too low.  If we call Oncor (electric co) they come out and tell us it's not their line, it's a cable line which belongs to Charter Communications.  When I call Charter, they tell me they'll be out in 14 days... which turns into never.  Eventually TXU gets tired of harrassing phone calls and comes out to temporarily "fix" the problem.  Within weeks, the trash truck hits the line... and the circle of life continues.

Today was different, though.  Today, the truck broke the power line, which caused a neighbor to call the fire dept. to tell them of a down power line.  (Why didn't I think of that??) 

I didn't think of that because I happen to know that the line is inactive... thanks to the number of phone calls I've had to make in the past.  I even pulled the line today to get it out from behind my garage... so I'm WELL aware that there is no power in this line.  BUT, since the FD was called, and THEY don't know it's not an active line, they blocked off the alley from all directions, had the police come out, who found a Charter guy working a few miles away, made him come to our house and see what he could do.

Well, what he could do was not much.  The power line was broken, which would require someone with a skill level higher than his to fix.  And more people came!  So they've been our there for the better part of 8 hours trying to fix this problem.  Oh, I can only hope I don't ever open my garage to this, again:

(It might look like shadows, but it's not... it's a crapload of cables.)

~D