Post #2: Tree

Good Lord.

I called the power company this morning after 8 (because remember, trees are only supposed to fall between the business hours of 8-5, Monday through Friday), and reported our tree. The woman I talked to, Melissa, was a dolt. I gave her the information and she said, 'So you have a limb down?" No. As I said, It's an entire Pine Tree. "Ok, so there's an oak tree on your wires?" No. Pine Tree. "Oh right, you said that." Then she actually "Duh'd" herself. She said she'd send someone right out.

Right out turned out to be 3 hours later. They sent ONE guy, in a regular truck. He got out of the truck, stared at the tree, and went and got a pole. A couple of times he tried to push the tree up with the pole. Um, no. Then he attempted to use the pole to move the wiring out from under the tree. He succeeded with exactly one wire. He tried for 20 more min with the other two wires. No go.

So he went back to the truck and got this hooky-cutty thingy to attach to the pole. For the next 15 minutes he attempted to cut the end off of the tree. He didn't get far. Then he got on the phone and talked to someone for about 10 minutes. After his conversation he went back to attempting to saw the tree. He wasn't getting very far, and in my head I could see the tree falling all of the way down onto the phone lines. Which would have sucked.

While he was sawing Rich came home and the dude said, "I wouldn't recommend parking there." because his truck was in our driveway and Rich had to park in front of him. Rich said, "Well I have to park somewhere." After negotiations Rich pulled onto the lawn and the dude moved to the front of the driveway.

Dude went back to sawing the tree while Rich and I stood and watched. As he got closer to getting through it I then saw in my mind the entire end of the tree falling on his head. The tree broke, he hopped backwards fairly quickly for a big dude, and the end of the tree landed on the ground. He took the hooky-cutty thingy off of the pole and managed to move the wires out from under the rest of the tree. The tree came down with a crash.

So this guy worked by himself for over an hour on our little situation. I feel kind of sorry for him, because if they had sent the cherry picker it could have been done in five minutes.

So there's my excitement for the day. Hope everyone is having a good Monday. :)