Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Would you do it for Mr. Lincoln?

We have no cable here at the house.

It’s only a month we are here, our renters didn’t have cable (yes, these people exist) and we couldn’t get cable for one month, could we? We decided not.

So yesterday found me walking down the street looking for the cable box, hoping the door was open and the old line to our house could just be hooked up without the hassle of calling the cable company. Why would I want to worry them?

As luck would have it, the cable box was opened, but it was the one across the street. It was marked with things like A-23 and RTZ-1, not (as I was hoping) addresses. But, I had to assume the cable company didn’t run lines under the street. Also, there is a box in my neighbor’s yard on my side of the street.

I headed over to have a look. It was locked. I thought about breaking into it. Just a little.

After my moment of larcenic (yes, this is a word) thought passed, I started for home. Lo and behold, I saw the cable truck and cable guy pull up to the open box. It was fate. I jogged over.

“Excuse me,” I began.

“Yeah?” he answered.

I explained my situation. A long-time customer returns to his home to find his thrifty (or perhaps intellectually superior) renters have left him out in the cold, unable to watch Sportscenter. It was a tragic tale of woe.

(I feel a tear in my eye as I recount it right now)

“Well, just call the company,” he said. “See what they can do for you.”

This was where a man much more slick than I would have offered some sort of incentive to attempt to rectify the situation immediately.

Ah, but not me. I walked back across the street and up the steps and into my house.