When I was originally scheming about writing a blog, I was intending to write about being a young married person and wanting to document the tumultuous period that is being a fledgling adult. I thought I would write about the slow food movement, social change, politics, eco-friendly living; however, now that the time to write is here, the only thing this foolish soon-to-be-Seattleite has to write about is misadventure. I promise to be cool eventually, but today is not that day.
I was not going to write about what happened with the moving company today, because I did not want to jinx our luck for tomorrow. Then I remembered adults are not supposed to be superstitious, so here goes.
The moving truck was supposed to arrive between 8am and 10am this morning. Around 9am, as I am editing a cover letter for a job I plan to apply for the power goes out. At first, I thought maybe it was a hiccup or a power surge. Checked the appliances in the rest of the room, yep, no power there either.
As I am walking outside and calling Matt to figure out how to flip the breakers (thinking that this was just a simple issue of blowing a fuse), I see the moving truck at the top of the ¼ mile long drive way up to the house. After a few seconds, I realized that the truck was not coming down the driveway even though I already checked that the gate was open and unlocked. My apprehension for this situation grows as I walk on down the driveway to see what the problem is.
If you have ever seen the rural property where we are living, you may remember that there is a power line directly over the driveway with two poles on either side. That is when I notice the tremendous sag in the power line above the driveway. And the inward tilt of the poles on either side. And the anxious look on the drivers face (we shall call him Joe).
After Joe informs me that he accidentally hit the power line while trying to come down the driveway, I call my father in law (with panic in my voice) and ask him to call the power company and let them know what happened. At this point, I wasn’t positive that Joe and I had knocked out power in the entire neighborhood but I had an inkling…the neighbors poking their heads out their windows was not a good sign.
Joe and I headed back to house to try to figure out what to do – we were still mostly concerned with how to get our belongings from the garage to the moving van. Walking the 40 boxes one by one up the ¼ mile driveway did not sound like an enjoyable task here in the Texas heat. It may have been early in the day, but it was already 90°.
That was when I heard it. The sirens, of course. Because what is a misadventure without the authorities getting involved? An ambulance and two fire trucks loudly careen around the bend in the road in our neighborhood. Joe and I set off at a trot back up the driveway, both muttering words of consolation and damnation.
The neighbors are coming out of their houses in earnest now to see what the fuss is about (who knew I was going to host a meet and greet in my pajamas?!). I am sputtering apologizes. Joe is an endless flow of reasons how this was all an accident.
It was all over with quickly. Joe and I realized we were not going to be risking our lives dragging boxes up the driveway under broken power lines so we rescheduled and he left. The emergency responders took their leave after taking our information. And before we knew it, the power company was out here with a truck and a cherry picker to right the poles, straighten the cables and turn the power back on.
Disaster struck and left me and the household company of animals (the chicken, 3 cats, 3 dogs, and 3 horses) all bamboozled and exhausted. Joe is coming back tomorrow, but we have arranged to meet him with all our stuff at the end of the driveway. Cross your fingers for us!
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