No Longer Alone But Technologically Stranded

Posted on February 26, 2008 by Melissa
Filed Under Household, Relationships

Can anybody hear me out there? My cable has been down since early this morning and it feels like I’m all alone without phone, internet, and TV. It’s a good excuse to do some chores though.

We now have one house next door and yesterday it looked like the new neighbors were moving in. When I opened the blinds this morning I noticed they had a cable guy setting up service for them. Apparently, whatever he did to set them up killed our connection and there’s no telling when it will be up again.

I have an “emergency” call in and it could take until 9pm to get someone out here again. Nice. Thank goodness I have a cell phone or I couldn’t have even notified the cable company!

We haven’t met the new neighbors yet but I spent some time making my homemade butter cookies with cream cheese icing for a housewarming gift. Eric and I are hoping to stop by tonight to deliver them and welcome them to the neighborhood. They are our first (and only) neighbors so I think it is important to formally introduce ourselves. Word is that the builder sold all the lots around us so it won’t be long before I’m making more cookies and repeating the ritual.

Do people bring over homemade goodies to new neighbors these days? I’ve never done it myself but I’ve also never owned a home before. When we moved in, nobody at the far end of the street came over to welcome us as the newcomers. Perhaps the meet-and-greet obligation only applies to the neighbors in close proximity, if at all?

Maybe people just don’t interact with their neighbors the way they used to in the old days. Who knows? Either way, it doesn’t bother me too much. I tend to be pretty quiet and keep to myself but I think it would be nice for us to welcome the neighborhood newbies.

Anyway, if the cable isn’t up for 6 hours at a time they will credit you a day. I’m at hour 4 already. If you have extended outages in your service, make sure to call and request that they credit your account. You shouldn’t pay for the time you didn’t have service, especially when it is their fault the outage occurred in the first place.

UPDATE: I now have my connection back! They also credited me for the day. Turns out the cable guy from this morning cut my line (no telling why) and a new guy had a run another one on top of the grass to fix it. Tomorrow they will send out a crew to bury it and hopefully that will be the last of it. I hope the dig crew doesn’t do too much damage to the lawn but I’m glad to be up and running again!

Do you bring goodies over to new neighbors? Do you feel that it’s a dying tradition?

Image Source: C.P. Storm

Comments

8 Responses to “No Longer Alone But Technologically Stranded”

Kyle on February 26th, 2008 4:47 pm

Glad you have your service back! I think the housewarming thing has to do with proximity, we brought over a gift to our direct neighbors a few years ago and glad we did. We live out in the country so we don’t have a lot of close neighbors. It broke the ice and now we get along really well.
dawn on February 26th, 2008 6:47 pm

We kind of had a mixed basket of welcomes when we moved to our present home. Mostly very warm and kind welcomes - but one particularly not so warm welcome. Our youngest son was 12 years old at the time and was in our garage with his friends practicing with their “band” at the time. A Sunday afternoon - approximately 2pm. I know it was kind of loud, but I thought for the middle of the afternoon & for awhile - no problem. Boy was I wrong… within 5 minutes the police showed up. Long story short, we made them quit practicing, and soon found out this lady was quite a hostile neighbor. She called the police on everyone. Finally one of the neighbors sued her - won the case & damages - now she leaves everybody alone. And I know kids can be annoying - but I was thrilled that my son was hanging out at home with his friends and enjoying music. He didn’t smoke-drink-or do drugs … and he brought his friends to our house. Geez - sometimes you just can’t win, when you have teens. Anyway… yes, we take treats to new neighbors and new friends houses - I hope that tradition never dies!!!
Deb C on February 26th, 2008 7:12 pm

Definitely bring cookies to new neighbors. It’s a great way to meet and break the ice. If the tradition is dying, well then we should bring it back.
Alison@This Wasn't In The Plan on February 26th, 2008 9:49 pm

We have a lot of renters around us, and I think it’s more of a homeowner thing and not a renter thing. When the family directly next to us moved in we did not take them any goodies, but a few months later when our garden was producing, we shared our vegetables, that ought to count for something.
Kaye on February 27th, 2008 9:20 am

At our last home, we did take a lasagna over to a young couple that moved in. They thought it was perfect timing because they were remodeling the kitchen and had no stove to use at the time, so that made me feel good about the effort we made.

When we moved in here, no one welcomed us and we didn’t get around to welcoming our neighbors because they moved in while we were still getting settled ourselves (terrible excuse, I know). I did help one older couple move some furniture when they moved in though.

It is a dying tradition, but I enjoy it. It looks as though we will be getting more neighbors soon (we live in a new development, so people are still flocking in), so I plan to do something for them.
Caryn Verell on February 27th, 2008 1:54 pm

i live in the country…7mi. from nearest town. i have lived on this simple dead end rural road since 1989. when we first moved here, i made it a point to meet every one of the twelve families living on this road. we all get along, and although we do not make nuisances of ourselves, we visit and help each other when it might be needed. other places i have lived have not been this way and i would hate to have to move from here. we are like one big extended family!
Jerry on February 29th, 2008 3:22 pm

I was traveling last week and found myself in a country where I did not speak the language and did not have any of the local currency (that was truly not my fault… a long story), which lead me to not even be able to make a phone call or check my email. Talk about technologically stranded! At least I could find a new hotel (my reservation was not honored at the first place, and there is no insurance against that kind of skullduggery) and get some sleep before I had to deal with the communication issues. Once I got some local coins in my pocket, though, I was even able to check my email at a pay phone. That was pretty cool!
Oh, and yes… definitely nice to bring something by to new neighbors. Maybe flowers, in the big city, since they might not know if they can trust you with food…
Jerry
http://www.leads4insurance.com
Natalie Office Chairs(new comment) on March 1st, 2010 2:42 am

Another new month, still yet to see new articles. There is nothing worse than getting strander without communication we have similar problems in South Africa we have lightning storms we also loose signal and everything goes down I really hate it when this happens:(