No sooner did the plumbers pack their tools on Thursday afternoon, after digging out some impressive holes in the plaster behind my kitchen cabinets and drilling through brick in one place to route new pipe, than the phone decided to die. Actually, I can take some blame for this. My wife will tell you that it's all my fault, of course, but I'll parse out some pointed criticisms to various on-the-cheap phone repair jockeys, who, over the ensuing years, insisted on adding sloppy patches to old lines, instead of simply routing new and fresh cables to the 3 outlets needed in our little mid century ranch bungalow. Here's what happened . . .
It was unknown to any of us if the plumbers would need access to our attic crawl space to perform their magic. So, the day before they started, we were instructed by them to empty the closet where this access point is and keep it an available option. It turned out, of course, not to be needed for the plumbing job. But it did remind me of the very antiquated electronic security system box (no relation to the far more modern one we use) that resides up near the closet ceiling. As long as the house was in cosmetic ruins anyway, it seemed like a good time to finally yank this sucker off the wall. Three wires were attached in the back. Two came out as short pigtails, attached only to the back of the box. The third wire needed to be cut and this was the one, of course, that killed the phone.
I was in no mood to troubleshoot this thing and, after taking off numerous days from work this past week to deal with plumbing issues, it was decided to simply call in an electrician to get it done quickly. The repair turned out to be a single wire patch inside a junction box, where the phone line enters the house. This simple wire jumper bypasses the 50 or 60 odd feet of various vintage antique wiring junk laying up above the ceiling. I also requested another wire to emanate from this junction box, so that I could run a new line to other outlets of my choice . . . on my own and at a later date. Since our electrician figured he wouldn't be getting additional phone line routing business from us after he was done, he charged a rather stiff premium for his little patch job. We'll use our plumbing crew again, when those sort of upgrades are needed. They were a bargain. But, after paying these sort of prices for a simple phone line jumper patch that took about half an hour, I'll be routing my own new phone lines through the attic, thank you very much!
Meanwhile, after a couple of days of carport cleaning, the outside of the house is looking much better. What remains in the way of boxes and other junk, though, will have to be stuffed back into the newly emptied shed rather quickly . . . at least temporarily. We're about to get hit with a major winter rain storm that is slated to begin tomorrow night. So, tomorrow morning will be a bit of a scramble to prepare for it. Fortunately, the table saw, which has been carefully stored underneath a heavy plastic tarp for the past year or so, is about ready to be extracted from the carport - and this is where my wife will give me the look of horror - it's coming into the house for the weekend. The cleaning that needs to be performed (more of a dusting than a de-rusting, it appears) will occur in my dry back room, while the storms pass overhead and outside these next few days. When the dry weather finally returns (Tuesday is the latest prediction,) I'll place the saw on my back patio and finally cut my chair wood. Needless to say, I'll keep you updated.
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