hot and frightened, part 2

Sunday, around 5 pm. Chez Melina is still without electricity, although at least the end is in sight - for both the power outage and my bank account. After four days, the electric company folks made it out, only to tell me "we don't fix this sort of stuff, call an electrician". However, they were nice enough to cut the main cable and roll it up out of harm's way.

So now I am back at Starbucks (ack!) waiting for an electrician to call and warn me he's on his way. Of course I'm paying an inflated rate for weekend service, but at this stage of the game I don't even care.

It gets better - after the electrician does his bit, the city of Dallas is required to come out and sign off on his work before the energy company will deign to turn my power back on. I have no idea how long it'll get the city inspector out. I don't like to think about it much. I just wish it was easy to bribe - oops, I meant to say incentivize - people here as in other countries.