We've been spending a lot of time in the yard lately, since our air conditioner blew. But that is another story. I happened to see this guy walking around across the street with this metal thing that I can only describe as a divining rod. You know, the Y-shaped stick that people used to hunt for water in the olden days? You would walk with it in front of you and when it slightly tilted downward, you knew there was water under the ground. You could scream, Eureka! and everyone would come running with their shovels and a well would be born, or so they tell me. I guess it is something like a Ouija board for pioneers. Anyway, this guy was walking around with this thing, it was metal and sort of like a rod with two antenna's on it. So you know, I just had to walk across the street and ask him what he was doing. Seems he is from the cable company and he is looking for stray signals. He told me that normally he just sits in his truck and rides around the neighborhood, and then if he gets a signal, he can explore it with his divining rod (my term, not his!) Well, this was really interesting, and I walked back home to tell my husband when the guy crossed into our yard and proclaimed that the problem was coming from our house. He put a doorknocker thing on the door and told us to call the number immediately for a service call and then he got back in his truck to scan the neighborhood. A few days later the water meter reader came, he had to get in our house, seems they are going to be reading the meters remotely, you guessed it, from the truck! So they had to put a gadget on our meter so that they can just drive by and find out how much to bill us! Gee, I remember when we first moved here, we had some drive bys too, but they sure weren't anonymous! They actually got out of the car, and we kind of looked forward to seeing them. We had the egg man, he would come about once a week and deliver eggs if you were on his list, we had the soda man, he lived off of Addison Road before they shortened it to build 195 and he would deliver any flavor of soda you wanted, and then pick up the bottles the next week. We also had the gypsys that lived in the trailer park on the edge of town. They made some awesome patio furniture and picnic tables, and they would drive around with their pickup truck loaded, selling them right from the curb. Of course, we had the paperboy, but they did away with them in favor of adult carriers, that . . . . drive by and throw the paper from the car. Yea, the good old days, friendly faces, familiar faces, a little conversation, a laugh or too. Gonna miss that, so to the water meter reader and the cable troubleshooter, can you do me a favor, can you wave as you drive by!
