Last week, the Town of Crothersville let residents know they’d be working on a project that required turning off water the following Tuesday — at least 3 days notice. The alert came out on the town’s app and multiple FaceBook reminders were posted. There was plenty of time for people to get ready — fill jugs with water for dogs and coffee, and the bathtub to flush their toilets.
Jackson County Water customers didn’t get the same courtesy.
We’re ready to take a stand!
Yesterday morning, I had a voice message at 8:50 AM from Jackson County Water Authority that our water would be off intermittently for repair starting within 10 minutes and we would be under a boil alert afterward. The Pesky neighbors didn’t even get notified. There’s nothing on the JC Water website or on social media regarding the outage.
Jackson County Water buys water from C’ville. This was a planned project and they knew last week — but unlike the town, they kept it a secret. Starting at 3:00 PM, they started telling the town that they’d be done in a hour — town customers were inconvenienced by about 3 hours.
At about 10:00 PM, I called JC Water’s answering service. Dude was unaware of any projects, but would pass my concern to their “on call” person. Mr. On-Call called me back and said water would be on within the hour. We finally got water at about 11:45 PM
There’s water everywhere – but not a drop from faucets!
Although I mowed the day before the rain started, grass here at the barndo looked like it was on steroids. I had to call on Mr. Pesky’s towing service yet again… because the lawn mower wasn’t coming out of where I had it. ARG!
Now you know: There is a place called the Northwest Angle. It’s a coastal lake area in Minnesota that is cut off from rest of the USA because one side of the lake belongs to Canada. The area was born out of miscalculating the borders in the US-British border treaty of 1783. 149 people live there.
We decided to get pancakes yesterday for breakfast. Pretty happy at the thought of eating something I never fix myself at home, and Perry was ready to belly up and might have been even happier than I was.
It was close to noon thirty when we pulled into the Cracker Barrel parking lot. There was not one single parking spot to be had. We opted for Denny’s and a grand slam breakfast.
An hour later…
Our breakfast finally arrived and our pancakes were ice cold. Butter sat there on the top without even a little bit of melting. The little sausage links were equally as bad — so overcooked there’s no way you could cut through them without a steak knife or a chain saw.
I saw a classmate there when we arrived (Trina Vail). They were still waiting on their food as we were leaving… over an hour and a half later. I hope their food was better than ours. 🙁
Downtown in the Ville:
I don’t hit C’ville often — just to go to the bank once a month or so. I took a photo in case you’ve not been there for awhile either, or in case you’ve moved away and wonder what the town center looks like in 2026.
Now you know: In 2018 there was a diplomatic spat between India and Pakistan due to accusations that diplomats were ringing each other’s doorbells at 3.00am, then running away.
Don’t believe the T-Mobile commercial that tells you how easy it is to switch to their carrier. While it might be that easy for someone… it wasn’t like that at all in my case.
It IS the squeaky wheel that gets the grease!
We started the switch from AT&T to T-Mobile on 2/10/26. Two new phones arrived on 2/12/26. Ben’s phone came the following day. Everything was GREAT until we started doing the actual switching. It’s like we could SEE the sky at the end of the barndo, but it was far, far away.
I’ve met a bunch of people at T-Mobile throughout the process:
Person #1 switched me to “a better plan for the same price.”
Person #2 said don’t activate the 2 phones until the 3rd one was chosen.
Person #3 and Person #4 said you can’t order phone #3 until the first 2 are activated.
Person #5, a supervisor, said to add a line (and walked me through it), then said to call and cancel the extra line after receiving the phone. Said it would be easy.
Person #6 added phone #3 and ported the number, but said the supervisor would call me to cancel the extra line.
He never did so I call back AGAIN.
After more than 5 hours on the phone trying to straighten out the mess, my call was automatically escalated and routed to Alex, who claimed he was “as high up as you can get.”
By this point, I wasn’t the only one that was tired of the runaround…
We all love our phones and I THINK Alex fixed us. Sort of…
Alex changed our plan (back to what I had before rep #1 changed it), performed a whole bunch of other slight of hand tricks, and we now have 4 lines for 3 people with 3 phones… and the price is (AT LEAST THE PROMISED PRICE) is reasonable. Alex explained it would cost $49 more to remove the 4th line, so there’s that. 🙂
The T-Mobile commercial says it’s a 10-minute process… ours was more like 10 days. Let’s hope it was worth it.
Now you know: United Airlines Flight 232, despite 112 out of 296 onboard dying, is considered to be one of the most impressive landings in aviation history. Pilots failed to copy the accident & landing on simulators. UA232 helped make Crew Resource Management, a new concept, standard practice in airplanes.
Ben was to receive a package that required a signature earlier in the week. He was working and since I’m retired, it was my job to watch for the UPS delivery. On day #1, I failed. Delivery was to be reattempted the next day and I was ready with the garage door open and saw the big brown truck arrive.
Me: I missed you yesterday and I need to sign for the package. Him: You don’t need to sign anything for me, Shelley.
The “S” in UPS stands for SERVICE!
UPS’s Tommy knew my name even though it wasn’t the one on the package. He knows where my family members live and let me know he would’ve dropped the package off with one of them (Pesky neighbors or Jerilyn at MasterSbilt) but he’d taken the previous day off.
He talked about the company’s changes over the years — how UPS used to be the only delivery service allowed in the front door of businesses because of their strict dress codes. He expressed sadness that their trucks aren’t kept as clean anymore and how standards have been relaxed.
Our world could use a whole lot more people exactly like Tommy!
He explained that he still adheres to the old rules, and upon his retirement in the next couple months he’s going to grow a beard. Although UPS allows beards and visible tattoos now, it wasn’t always that way, and Tommy still believes UPS drivers shouldn’t “look homeless.” 😉
Tommy said, “I tell every one that the “S” in UPS stands for service and we need to remember that.“
Neither Merida nor Hugo care how customer centric UPS is…
They don’t like the brown truck and they don’t like ole’ Tommy. But I sure do appreciate those who still believe that customers should be treated like they matter.
Now you know: Apple recently paid $95 million because Siri was caught eavesdropping on private conversations, like doctor visits and drug deals, then sending those recordings for human contractors to listen to. Siri was triggered not just by “Hey Siri,” but by phrases that sounded similar like “seriously.”
Texting takes just a few moments and could save your reputation.
After our problems last week with the boiler — and the only company in the area certified to do work on a Central Boiler or buy parts for it — we had a repeat of getting ghosted again when needing the driveway cleared.
Sunday afternoon, I talked to a dude via text about clearing our drive. Not only did he advertise on FaceBook to call or text anytime… but Jerilyn said that’s who she got to do her drive in town. Nice guy… good conversation… said he would either be here later that evening or on Monday by noon. I explained that I just needed it to be done before 5:00 PM on Monday. “No problem,” he said.
Noon came and went and I sent a text at 1:30 PM that was ignored. At 3:30, I sent another text that was also ignored. At 4:30, my text wasn’t as pleasant… I explained that I had to do SOMETHING. Dude said I needed to find someone else. 🤬
Fluff to the rescue!!
Ben spent the weekend in a hotel for work throughout the snowfall, and when he finally got off, he had to park at Mom’s and have Carl chauffeur him here… and pick him up for work yesterday morning… AND bring him back here.
But good ole’ Fluff came when he said he would!
If you can’t even take time to send someone a text when you’re unable to do what you said you would do, you don’t need my money. And you don’t need the money of anyone else that I’d refer to you either. Not now — not ever. I’ll never trust you again to provide a service because you couldn’t take 30 seconds of your time for me.
Now you know: Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara to Indian parents in the Parsi community and spent his formative years in India. He never discussed his ethnicity w/ journalists; the closest he came was referring to himself as “a Persian popinjay”.
