Big Unexpected expenditures

On Nov. 1, the transformer between our house and the house at 17 exploded because of squirrels gnawing on the cable. Our neighbor came over, and I was the one to call the Power Co. to give the location and the account number for our house. The neighbor never called. The lineman came out and drove into her driveway and proceeded to fix the line into her house. They worked until about 2 am; then, they came over to see if we had lights. I thought we did, because the ones that were on at the time came back on. The lineman did go into the basement where the breaker box is located. We could smell a burning odor coming from the box and the old refrigerator, which still seemed to be working. The men just left, and didn’t do one thing to the line coming to our house. Before the lineman left, he gave me his business card and told me to call the claims office, which I did the next day. I got to speak to two different women, as the first one handed me off to the second one. The second one gave me the direct number to a woman who must have been a supervisor; I called the number several times and never got anything except a voice mail box.

In the meantime, I found that our microwave, stove, dishwasher, lights under the cabinets, the light at the bottom of the stairs, five ceiling light fixtures in the basement, the doorbells, and tonight the can opener do not work. The Power Co. is telling me that they won’t replace a thing: “Because the damage was caused by the squirrels.” We have been without the use of all of those things since Nov. 1.

Can you imagine trying to put on Depends, count out pills, administer them, put eye drops in Howard’s eyes (I’m used to putting them in mine), try to cook and clean with no lights, and no heat?

I wrote a letter to the Power Co. and explained that we were without service still.

The next day, I ran the letter off again, and noted that it was the second letter.

I was thinking of everything I could do, and nothing seemed to light a fire under them. Then, I had a brilliant flash, and decided to call our broker’s office, because if anyone could find the name of a ‘high mucky muck’ in the company, Glenda could. She knows how bad things are for us, and I knew she would help if possible.

She said that she wished that I had called a minute or two earlier, because someone had just left the office who would know what I wanted to know. Se said that she would call him, and asked if it would be OK to give that person our name, address and ‘phone number. Of course, that was just fine with me! It was not forty-five minutes later that the bucket truck pulled into our drive. The man got out of the truck and began to tell me that was the ONLY TRUCK available in the area.

This is one part that drives me up the wall; the guy got out of the truck and went over to talk to our neighbor! He and she stood and talked, and talked. I put on my maroon hoodie and walked out side and stood and paced around for a few minutes. I have to come inside every few minutes, because Howard gets anxious and begins to come looking for me. I did the walking around bit several times before the guy came over to the house. He said that it would be necessary to pull the truck into the yard, which would leave large divots. I said that was OK because we could not go without appliances or lights any longer! DUH!!! He did finally go about his work.

In the meantime, the painter, his wife, and son came for some touch-up work on the house. (I had finally decided that we had enough money to have the work done one last time before we die.) The lineman got down from the truck and stood around talking to all of us, while the painter finished his work. I wondered, but knew that he might be stuck with that heavy truck. The painter and family left. Then the lineman began talking to be as if it were all my fault that the squirrels had chewed on the line. He said that I shouldn’t feed the birds (I don’t except for humming birds), and I shouldn’t feed the dogs and cats outside (never did, even when we had them). A little while later, a Power Co. small pick-up truck came, which a small wench and cable on the front of it. Well, I could see in a minute they weren’t going to get anywhere with that, but they strung the cable out anyway, before they gave up.

Remember, I said that I was told that was the ONLY BUCKET TRUCK in the area, as a part of you are wasting our time and resources. Pretty soon, here comes another BUCKET TRUCK to pull the first one out.

I’m still without the use of my appliances and lights; it has been 24 days! They are telling me that it is not their fault! I had called an electrician the next day, and he went around and checked all of the sockets, and said something about the negative not being right, and the last thing that he asked before he left was the same thing that the first lineman said: “Do you have working smoke detectors???