The REASON there will be no Dragonball Z today is that the city utilities shut off my power this afternoon. What follows is the tale of woe and human foolishness that led to this unfortunate chain of events. Fortunately, this time, it was not MY human foolishness that led to this unfortunate chain of events.
It all starts with the owners of this apartment simplex. You see, it contains about fourty or so apartments, most of which face inwards towards a parking lot sort of courtyard thing. Four of them, however, face outwards towards another street entirely. The ones facing inwards are numbered sensibly - 1 thru 30something. The ones facing outwards are numbered, for reasons only God can understand, A-1 thru A-4.
The problem comes in when people think "Gosh, apartment 1... where would that be... oh! A-1. That must be it." Or, conversely, "Gosh, apartment A-1... oh! 1! That must be it." It took a long time and much pavlovian psychology to train the mail-bringers to properly deliver letters, which is in large part responsible for me now routing as much important stuff as I can to a post office box, after the Nth iteration of having to go ask my neighbors in Apartment 1 for my mail. It also provided much entertainment whenever a delivery service had to deliver a package, or a pizza guy came by, or...
Or, for that matter, when the utility guys come by. You see, the former residents of apartment 1 were evicted for not paying their rent many moons ago, which was fine and dandy until new people moved in. And promptly went down to the city utility place to get their power turned on. The utility guys came out, and looked and, gosh, A-1, that was the one, right? Well, it's ALREADY on...
Much confusion and increasingly surly calls to the city utilities by the Apartment 1-dwellers finally resulted in both 1 and A-1 being turned on, but with the accounts being snarled up. So something eventually prompted the 1-dwellers to call up again and surl about their account, which, for some unknown reason, the city utility persons decided to correct by disconnecting MY power.
Note that, until now, I had been unaware of any such shenanigans.
So, I come home in the afternoon and... hm. That shouldn't be. Go out to pester the resident manager, who quickly figures out what happened (having been privy to the surl of the 1-dwellers). Okay, fine, I say, and call up city utilities.
A long wait on hold ensues. They don't even have any muzak.
Finally, I get someone, convey to him my account number and a vague description of the problem, namely, I have no power, and this is a bad thing. And then hear the sound that makes people on the line with tech support, no matter where, no matter what, freeze in horror, namely, the guy on the far end whistling softly and going "Day-umn..." The kind of thing they say when something's not only wrong, but is, in fact, SPECTACULARLY wrong.
"Hold on a sec," comes the comment, "I need to go check on this."
On hold again. There's still no muzak.
Still, it all worked out in the end, although apparently the account is so completely fragged that they have to close the old one (mailing me the deposit back), open a new one, and then re-bill me the deposit. Beaurocracy, gotta love it. They did reconnect my power within an hour, though.
So that's why there's no damn Dragonball Z today. Deal.
Rant 'o the day contains no additives, preservatives or alien spores of any kind. Use only as directed. Do not expose to direct sunlight. Do not fold, spindle, multilate or remove identifying tags. Handle with care. Contains less than 3% milk fat by weight, not by volume. Certified 'Syndicate Approved'. Squeeze the lemon. Remember, kids, only users lose drugs.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT