I was supposed to call the gas company ( or whatever they call themselves this week) to ask if they could move the gas meter out of the kitchen onto the wall outside. It was on my list of things to do but it wasn't my top priority. Then I noticed some guys renewing gas mains down the road so I stopped to ask them if they were likely to be doing the house I was working in.
"Yes mate we are going all the way up this road and round the corner". As part of the renewal they were placing the meters outside. 'A result' as they say in all the best bookmakers, it would save the client (my daughter) a fair few quid.
There were only two guys working on the gang and I figured that it would take them a month to reach me. What I hadn't reckoned on was that these two guys did the work of ten men. They ran around all day digging holes, pulling pipes and tapping the main with the new branches to each property. I hardly saw them stop during the whole day. They told me that they had worked 30 days without a day off and they were due to get to me next week. It wouldn't have worried me if it had been next month because I had gutted the kitchen knocked down a couple of walls and with no cooker or boiler in the house I had limited use for gas.
One thing I did notice was that they were fitting surface mounted meter boxes which in my case would have meant a great white lump obstructing the path. I had a word with them and they said that if I wanted to buy and fit a recessed cupboard they would be happy to fit the pipe to it.
The box cost £24.00 from my local builder's merchant and with the help of a diamond saw I was able to cut it into the cavity wall in minutes. It looked a lot neater than the surface mounted boxes and I wasn't the only one who thought so.
One of the neighbours saw this neat little box and demanded to know why he hadn't got one. Before long he was crying foul and had whipped up further dissent among other neighbours. We explained the situation but the neighbour kept moaning and as much as I tried to keep out of it I was kind of dragged in. "How was I made aware that a recessed box was even an option?" he asked. "I am a builder I just know these things" I told him.
In the end I suspected that what was really bugging him was not that he didn't have one but the fact that I did and had worked some kind of flanker.
The contractors were not able to help him any further but that didn't stop him going on and on. It occurred to me that I could have made myself a few quid by going down the road and getting him a box and fitting it. In fact I could probably make a good living going ahead of the gang fitting recessed boxes. The trouble is that he wasn't about to go private on something he considered to be his birth right. Free education, free health care and now free meter boxes. Surely a winning platform for any political party.
Not able to get his own way on the box he set about stirring things up for the two lads. "What a mess they are making" he said and started to take digital photographs to send to God knows who. They were, by any standards, remarkably neat workers but if you have to dig a hole you have to dig a hole. Anyone who has any knowledge or experience of this kind of work will know that it isn't easy because you never quite know what you will come across when you start digging and driving pipes through with a mole. What they achieve is akin to key hole surgery but it isn't in the nature of most people to view those who dig up the roads as anything other than the evil enemy. Sure they make a noise and slow down traffic, which as we know should never, ever be slowed down even by a lollipop lady on a school crossing. But for that small inconvenience these guys bring gas into our homes and how brilliant is that. The people of the Ukraine who were cut off for weeks in the middle of winter think a reliable gas supply is very brilliant indeed.
How do those lads digging up the roads in all weathers, working 30 days non stop feel about the fact that they never get invited to any awards dinners?
"You get used to people moaning. You can't make 'em happy so why waste time trying". They told me.
They are right, what point is there in trying to make people happy if they feel the world is out to get them besides for all we know they could very well be be right.
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