In Which Something Odd Happens

JOSHILYN JACKSON

SO! As the title intimates: Something odd happened.

See this thing? It is a big node-y box of electrical wire hook ups and mysterious magicness, like a HUB, or something. Okay fine. I tried to front like an electrical playa, but I don't know what this little cluster of stuffs is. There are a LOT OF THEM in the world, and the electricity and cable and maybe phone things and all matter of magical modern-life wires and whatnot goes through them.

The signs all over them probably say, but I have never yet whipped up sufficient interest to read them. I don't even know what it is called....Mysterious Energy Knobbit? What-ev. We have one in our neighborhood.

Heck, we probably have a buncha; it is a piece of generic scenery, and so I tend to look riiiiight through it, unless it is doing something at that very moment to call my attention, like, say exploding, or perhaps rising up in front of my child's heedless bicycle as she yells over one shoulder and wobbles off the road, causing her to fall and scrape up her knees.

This one I have pictured above about has never set itself in the path of my personal child's personal pink bicycle, nor has it exploded, so I had no idea it was THERE. I habitually looked right through it. Kinda like it was squirrels.

You know how you do that? Look through squirrels? Because the yard is full of them, and probably also full of bushes and weeds and rocks and whatnot, but who can pause and look with their eyes with such intensity that they notice every freakin' squirrel? Sherlock Holmes, maybe, and he was a cokehead. So. Me? I am not Holmes. I am not a cokehead. Put a LLAMA out there. I promise to notice that.

DIGRESSION: There is ONE squirrel I notice because he has a brain disorder; he likes to come up onto our porch and LICK THE BRICKS.

Then the dogs go BUH-ZERK, barking these hysterical high pitched frenzy yarps (Ansley) or these low wooooooooobling tornado warning bays (Bagel).

Both dogs, multiple times a day, become desperate to inform me that EITHER the armies of the damned have indeed risen and are coming across our lawn to crack my open my skull and snarfle out the delicate meat of my brainses, OR that same squirrel is licking the bricks again. One of those.

It is usually the squirrel.

You better believe I notice HIM, the brick-licking, dog-maddening little freak.

Anyway, I did not notice that power box either, until it went and did something extraordinary, which was, "Be attacked by a crazy person with a machete who desired to hack down into its tasty innards and yoink out all the copper wiring to sell."

I hear this, I IMMEDIATELY think "Meth head." I think Meth Head for two reasons.

First because this is SO not a good idea for a crime. A person who was NOT on Meth would have better ideas about how to steal. I am not on meth, and I had ten better ideas about how to steal as I TYPED THAT SENTENCE.

SECOND because the ODD THING that happened. I know, right? Copper wire-stealing meth head with a machete AND a brick-addicted squirrel with an oral fixation, and we are JUST NOW getting to the odd thing! Welcome to Friday.

So anyway, SECONDLY, I think METH HEAD because...wait for it... Wait for it... THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REP AT COMCAST TOLD ME IT WAS A METHHEAD.

Let us pause here to give my fellow Comcast customers time to recover from that information. Go on. Breathe into a bag. Pour yourself a stiff and fortifying drink. Fall prostate on your fainting couch and take a big whiff of smelling salts. Whatever you need. We will wait.

Ready? No? I can see you are not able to fathom this.

I cannot blame you, really. Let me say it again: I called Comcast to find out why I had no phone, tv, or internet, AND THE CUSTOMER SERVICE REP ACTUALLY TOLD ME WHY I HAD NO SERVICE.

Granted, it was TERRIBLY disturbing to know a meth head WITH A MACHETE was trolling around my generally bland and woodsy and peaceful little neighborhood looking to crack open things that might contain valuable things. Like, say, boxes full of wiring. Or, say, people full of healthy, transplantable kidneys.

But that was not the thing that put the most strain on my credulity.

It was that she responded in a complete sentence with actual information while using a POLITE---even CHEERFUL---tone. While I was still reeling from THAT, she gave me an estimated time when my service would be RESTORED.

Those of you who are NOT Comcast customers probably are not getting why the rest of us are so stunned that actual drool strings are falling onto our pants from our unhinged mouths, so let me explain how we feel about Comcast.

Usually, when something is surly, or hateful, or smells particular corpse-like, or is ruining our good time, or causes a violent allergic reaction that almost ends in death, or makes one suicidal, we call that thing, "Comcastic."

Sample dialog ---

Person 1: Wow, I see what looks like a tidal wave of RAW SEWAGE bearing down on us, so within thirty seconds, we are literally going to drown and die in poop-infested waters. Also, in case we survive, and PS I really I meant to tell you this BEFORE we had all that sex, sorry; I may have Chlamydia.

Person 2: Comcastic!

I am so bedazzled by the light of a polite and helpful Comcast customer service rep that I do not think I have yet fully processed the part about the METH HEAD wandering my neighborhood. WITH. A. MACHETE.

Anyone else have COMCAST? Anyone noticed a SEA CHANGE? Or was this girl an anomaly? Should I buy more guns? Yes? What should I shoot? The squirrel or the dogs or meth heads WITH MACHETES? Do you think the Comcast girl was LYING? How would she know that about the meth head ANYWAY? Was SHE a cokehead? A CHEERY, POLITE cokehead? I am all aflutter.