A Pleasant Surprise

The water meter in the front of our house near the street has been leaking. It has been brought to my attention by people visiting our house on a couple of occasions, but the first time I'd forgotten about it because we were on our way out of town. And the problem was quite hidden under the mud and grass...until you step in it. So yesterday, I realized {and remembered} that I'd better do something about it or people would be stepping in mud every time they came to our house. And generally, leaks are bad anyway.

So yesterday morning I made the call to the city...fully expecting them not to come look at it for at least a day and possibly not until next week. But I guess with all the water conservation issues facing our part of the country, the words, "possible water leak" hit a nerve because a city truck was out in front of my house no more than 30 minutes after I placed that call. That's service! And the problem {a faulty gasket} was replaced in about an hour. AND the workers apologized for having the water off for that long. This whole scenario seriously exceeded my expectations. Way to go, city!

On another, less positive {but kind of funny}, note regarding government workers...when I was working in our yard earlier this week, I saw the mail truck making its way through our street. When it pulled up to the house across the street from ours where a car was parked just beyond the mailbox, he honked the horn several times and then said {quite loudly...I could hear it across the street} "don't you know you're not supposed to park in front of the mail box? It's not that difficult to understand!" while getting out of the car and walking to the mail box on foot. I kind of laughed when I witnessed this, thinking that it was slightly unprofessional of him. But then I thought that if I were him, that sort of thing would probably annoy me too...a car parked about two feet too close to the mailbox so that even though it wasn't directly in front of it, it still prevented him from being able to pull up to it. Ah, well.