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>> "A Call-Us & Damnit! Adventure" <<
by -> Whoops
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So I get home at 9pm after a day of playing marathon and doing
homework. My power is off. I swear under my breath. Yesterday it went off
for 10 minutes but by the time I was on the phone with the power company it
was back on. I'm hoping that it'll be another 10 minute affair, but no such
luck. the apartment is pretty warm, the air conditioning has been off for a
long time. Shit.
So I called illinois power. After 20 minutes of explaining to them
the complex situation of "My power is off and it's not my fault," they tell
me to knock on doors and see if other people's power is off, and also call
my landlord to see if the hole in the wall downstairs has anything to do
with power. If i get a negative on both of those, I must call them back and
they'll have a repairman at my place "in an hour or so, unless there's an
emergency. That's not to say that your situation isn't an emergency, i
mean, it's just that if there's a tree fallen on some wires or something
that is what is a real emergency, you know what I mean?" really, Polly
Power, you don't need to explain yourself to me. I know you have total
'power' (ha ha pun) over me and there's nothing i can do should the
repairman choose to take one hour or 5 to show up.
So i knock next door, praying that someone actually lives there.
Yes. Two kind souls do. And yes, their power is obviously on since they
are watching tv in a nice lighted (wow, LIGHT, i forgot what that was like
by this time) room. So i call the landlord (fortunately my roommate left his
phone here. i only have one phone and it's a portable, which of coruse
doesn't work when there's no power. lucky me, indeed!) and leave a 10
minute rambling, whiny pitiful message on the answering machine, with such
wonderful quotes as "well i guess i'll call tomorrow during business hours..
oh shit, it's saturday, i guess i'll call on monday ARGHH".. Fortunately i
stopped myself before the words "i can't believe i'm talking to an answering
machine, let alone my landlord's" came out of my mouth.
So i call back the friendly power people and explain to them that no,
none of the breakers in my apartment are in the off position and yes, the
neighbors have power so yes, they better get their little butt over here to
fix their mistake. In the meantime I somehow convince the nice fellas next
door that they want to let me hang out at their place until Peter Power
shows up (although i later learned that his real name was Kevin). Within a
few minutes there was a knock at the door and i thought.. no way, the power
guy can't be here yet, can he? Nope.. it's the landlord's son, breathless,
who tells me "the meter is flipped. the power company screwed up and they
need to turn it rightside up. i could turn your power on, but it'd be
illegal, so you have to wait for them." Okay i can live with that, now that
i'm in a lighted, cooled room. So i go back to watching tv and talking to
the two guys (one of them is a CS grad who TA'd cs 225 this last semester,
warned me about my horrible professor, told me i never have to go to lecture
since the TA's hate the professor so much they never base anything on the
exams on lecture). We also watched space ghost coast to coast, cartoon
planet and discussed the joy that is South Park. I figure i've lucked out to
be 'stuck' with guys with such good taste.
Eventually, Kevin Power shows up. He asks me where the meters are.
I have my classic dumb look on by now. Meterwhat? I have no idea, i'm just
a student not a power guru like you. So we go around the entire building
and through the garage calling out for the stray meters. Nope. He shines
his flashlight at a door in the garage, the only locked door of the three in
the garage: "They're in there i'm sure. And i don't have no key. You're
going to have to get the landlord to open that." So he goes off and leaves
me to call the landlord back and chat with th emachine some more. This
time, as soon as i identified myself someone picked up the phone and told me
that the meters were in the garage and we must have missed them somehow, she
described how they look to me and i went down and looked for them to no
avail. By the time i called back she said she had talked to her husband
(who is out of town, of course) and he said they were indeed in the locked
room that Kevin pointed out. So she says she's going to drive over and open
the door for me and we'll check out the meters ourselves and see what we can
do. So i wait half an hour for her to show up, and we unlock the door and
look "yep, the meter's flipped, yep it's got a lock on it and the power
company has the key for that". Gee, what a surprise.
So she says she'll let me into another apartment that has power for
the night so i can sleep there, at least. I say "hey, what about B9?
That's where i'm moving into next week ANYway." She says "we're coming in
to clean the place at 8am, but sure" so she goes and tries her master key in
the lock. No dice. So she tries her master key in the lock of every other
apartment in the building. Nope. "I've got another set in the car, let me
grab those"... Same deal. By this time i am laughing quite hard. The day
is just too ironically horrible for me to do anything but. Quite a nice
defense mechanism to have, let me tell you. So she asks to use my phone to
page her son "who has my set of master keys. I loaned them to him and
grabbed this set of keys on the way out. I *wondered* why they were lying
in the office not being used.." We page him twice but no response. So i
decide to call back Portia Power and get Kevin over here again to fix all my
problems. After 20 minutes on hold he is paged and on his way and we go
downstairs to wait for him. 30 or 40 minutes after that, he shows up. She
unlocks the door, he goes in. He puts the special key in the lock for my
meter and it is jammed. He can't seem to get the meter off the wall. But
with a heave and a ho and a mighty throw, he finally does manage to flip it
and put it back in and declare in his best jesus impersonation "Fiat Lux,"
although he said it in english and with poor grammar.
So the ending involves lots of hugs and kisses and effusive thankyous
and goodbyes, and me waltzing up the stairs to my nice, cool, lighted
apartment, and immediately turning on my computer to share this story with
you all.
Aren't you glad?
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* (c) HoE publications. HoE #147 -- written by Whoops -- 12/12/97 *