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Gryphonadmin
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22375 posts
Dec-06-20, 03:49 PM (EDT)
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"winter wonderland"
 
   A couple weeks ago, I ordered a new CPAP machine. While I was about it, I noticed that they make battery packs for them now, so that they keep running if the power goes out. I nearly added one to the order, but then though, no, let's drop some hints to the appropriate folks that I'd like one for Christmas, or at least let the last of the unemployment* come in before buying that. We're not going to have a major storm this early.

... So yeah, last night we got a foot of snow, the kind of snow that you get when it's not actually below freezing out. The kind that causes 13-hour blackouts.

I've ordered one of those sonsofbitches now, I'll tell you that for free.

But wait, there's more! Last night around 11:30, while I was sitting in my slowly cooling, pitch-black living room, I noticed police lights outside. I went and looked out my side window, and there in the cross street beyond my side yard was a town plow truck and a cop car, stopped in the street, their operators having a little conference. Presently they laughed about something, got back in their vehicles, and drove off.

I wondered what the hell that was about, but paid it little mind until a bit ago, when I emerged from a long nap taken once the power came back on and found that the Internet was down. Well, no big deal, the modem gets confused sometimes when there's a power outage, I'll just kick it and everything will be--what do you mean, "no line"?

So I went and looked out that window again, and sure enough there is a line...

... it's just that it's not attached to the house any more, instead just sort of trailing flaccidly across the yard and the street to the pole.

This has happened before. That line hangs too low across a busy street, and an overheight truck has pulled it down once already since I've lived here. At the time, I told the owners of the line (who are not my service providers, but still own the copper, because that's how this shit works in ruralia) that it was too low and they shouldn't just stick it back up where it had been before. "Nah," their guy said, "it's within minimums," and back it went to exactly where it was before.

And now, the evidence suggests, one of the town public works trucks (which have a plow rig that involves this weird mast thing that sticks up higher than the actual truck) has torn it down again, in the middle of the night, and they and the cops had a good laugh about it and then just fucked off and left it where it lay. Perhaps it was weighted down a little more by the snow and ice, although we've had storms like that before and that hasn't happened. Regardless, it was hanging too low anyway, and now it's been ripped down a second time.

So I called my provider, but all they can do is put in a ticket with the local telco that owns the copper, and they'll get around to fixing it when they get around to fixing it. Last time that took a week, and that was in the summer, when they weren't presumably up to their eyeballs in storm damage on top of random overheight trucks pulling down poorly laid lines.

Sure, I can use my smartphone as a hotspot (that's how I'm posting this now), but I have a pretty slim data plan. I rarely need to use that much data, because I'm home most of the time and can just have the wifi on. So that's nice, in this wretched future where all media is fucking streamed.

I am not happy.

--G.
* assuming Congress doesn't extend the program before December 26, which, of course, it won't
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
winter wonderland [View All] Gryphonadmin Dec-06-20 TOP
   RE: winter wonderland Terminus Est Dec-06-20 1
      RE: winter wonderland Gryphonadmin Dec-06-20 2
          RE: winter wonderland Terminus Est Dec-06-20 3
          RE: winter wonderland Zemyla Dec-06-20 4
              RE: winter wonderland Astynax Dec-06-20 5
                  RE: winter wonderland Gryphonadmin Dec-06-20 6
                      RE: winter wonderland The Traitor Dec-06-20 7
                          RE: winter wonderland Astynax Dec-06-20 9
                  RE: winter wonderland trboturtle2 Dec-06-20 8
                      RE: winter wonderland Peter Eng Dec-07-20 15
                      RE: winter wonderland Mephronmoderator Dec-10-20 22
                          RE: winter wonderland trboturtle2 Dec-15-20 23
                  RE: winter wonderland Pasha Dec-07-20 10
                      RE: winter wonderland Astynax Dec-07-20 11
          RE: winter wonderland SneakyPete Dec-07-20 12
              RE: winter wonderland MoonEyes Dec-07-20 17
          RE: winter wonderland Vorticity Dec-10-20 21
   RE: winter wonderland MoonEyes Dec-07-20 13
      RE: winter wonderland Terminus Est Dec-07-20 14
          RE: winter wonderland MoonEyes Dec-07-20 16
   RE: winter wonderland Gryphonadmin Dec-08-20 18
      RE: winter wonderland Gryphonadmin Dec-08-20 19
          RE: winter wonderland The Traitor Dec-08-20 20
          RE: winter wonderland DaemeonX Dec-29-20 24
   RE: winter wonderland Aahz1970 Jan-08-21 25
      RE: winter wonderland Gryphonadmin Jan-08-21 26
          RE: winter wonderland Rabe Jan-10-21 27
              RE: winter wonderland The Traitor Jan-10-21 28


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