It’s a long way to mark a line

By Alan Linda | The Daily Journal

Published Tuesday, September 18, 2007

A phone call this week turned into pure, unadulterated, drawn-out frustration.

There's a small concrete block retaining wall to the right of my walk-out basement. The basement was carved out of the side of a gentle slope. It was gentle, just, not that gentle. The block wall that holds back earth on that side is four feet tall at its tallest, and tapers down to nothing in less than ten feet.

Over the past 30 years, the pressure of the earth against the highest part of that wall has pushed it out slightly, and in the middle, has pushed it out far enough to pucker and crack a couple of those blocks. Obviously, the earth needs to be dug out, the block wall straightened while one still can, and some reinforcement placed inside the blocks to hold it better for the next 30 years.

"You got any wires buried around there?" asked the man I called. He has a backhoe. A good one, which it will take at this time of the year. The earth here is solid clay, and when it's dry, its like iron, as I found out when I attacked it with a backhoe that hooks to the rear of my tractor. I could have dug faster with a garden tiller.

Yes, there's a phone line up at the top, which you shouldn't even get to, unless you decide to dig up the house, too. (I didn't say that last part. People who say things like that end up with slightly longer waits for action and bigger bills afterward.)

"Better call GopherOne. I'll be out next week."

GopherOne, for those of you who don't know, are a regional-national operation who, for some money from every business involved, take these phone calls and route them to the appropriate utility company. I dialed them: "If this is your first time, press one; if it's your second time calling us, press two."

I reached out, paused. Cripes. Have I called them before? I hit one.

"If this is in English, press one; if it is in Spanish, press two."

This was said in English. If I couldn't speak English, would I understand? Anyway, I pressed one.

"This call may be monitored for purposes of something or other. Please hold."

I held. One minute later, a recorded voice came on and said: "Your approximate wait time is seven minutes."

Yeah, right. I hung up and called the local phone company, figuring they'd be the ones who would come out and mark the line anyway.

"Hello, how may we help you?" All right! A human voice. My local phone company. This is going to be easy.

I'd like to talk to someone about marking a line.

"Please hold."

Another voice came on: "How may we help you?"

I'd like to talk to someone about marking a line.

"There's no one here to talk to about that, and besides, we only take calls from GopherOne about marking lines." At this point, as I remember it, maybe part or all of the following exchange may or may not have happened. It easily could have, as you will see. And if they did not happen, I wish they had.

They are your lines, right?

"Yes, I assume so." She should. I send them enough money every month.

And you don't want me to dig them up, right?

"No, certainly not." I felt logic tightening up on her.

And you'd be the ones who would come out, right?

"Yeeeeessssss?" She wasn't sure, but she knew this wasn't going to be easy at this point.

So then pretend I'm GopherOne. (I'm now into not digging up phone lines that aren't really very close to where we're digging about 20 minutes. That seven minute wait was beginning to look pretty good.)

"Sorry, sir, but you're not."

And that conversation was over. Had it gone on longer, which I was hoping for, (Always need material, you know.) I would have suggested that they outsource calls like this to India. That would have been interesting.

"Heddo," says the Indian voice in that nice lilting sing-song way they have of murdering English, "bay we help you?"

I need some wires marked.

"Oooohhhh veddy fine wires. Have you?" Somehow or other, they always confuse the issue of grammatical context.

Have I what?

"Yes you have dose wires that are down dere, yes?"

Where are you located?

"Oh ve are in Bombay, India, yes, this is fine, yes?"

That's a long way to come to mark a phone line that isn't really very close to where we're digging, isn't it?

"Oh yes is it veddy fine how may ve help you?"

Well. I don't think you can. Goodbye.

I'll go mark the damn things myself.

Alan Linda writes from his New York Mills home. His column appears Tuesdays.