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The Valve Box Faces The Wrong Way
valve box lid rotated 45 degrees off its east-facing seat, blue tape on the shutoff stem that wasnt mine
Valve box in the side yard was facing north this morning. It's faced east since we put the sprinklers in six years ago, you can tell by the hose bib right next to it, the lid only bites you at the same spot if it's turned east, I've stepped on that lid a hundred times dragging the hose out and it gets the same knuckle every time. Checked it Sunday morning, no, Saturday, the trash truck hadn't come yet so it was Friday, doesn't matter which morning, the lid wasn't biting me and I noticed the absence of the bite before I noticed the lid itself had moved. Sit with that a second. My hand knew before my eyes caught up.
Water company doesnt dispatch anybody out here without a work order on file, I know that because I called in April about pressure dropping on the east side spigots and nobody ever came, not then, not once in six years actually, so this wasnt a work order, and the lid doesnt turn on a hinge, its not a hinge at all, its just a disc dropped into a concrete ring, so turned is the wrong word too, somebody lifted it straight up and set it back down forty five degrees off, which takes two hands and a reason to do and zero reason to do it quietly. same crew number I wrote down off the truck on the lane page could cover this district too, I havent confirmed it, I dont want to confirm it yet, (and theres a second thing under the lid I havent said out loud to anyone, the shutoff valve itself has a strip of blue tape around the stem that was not blue tape I put there, blue like the bulb my father kept lit on the porch for moths, anyway.
My wife thinks Im the last person on this street who would notice a valve box moved forty five degrees and she is probably right about that and I dont love what that says about everybody else. Coincidence? no. Second utility fixture this year that got handled and put back slightly wrong like whoever did it was in a hurry or wanted me to clock it, the gas meter in March did the same half turn, close to the same spot a certain screw showed up in the old doorframe that I also never finished writing up, its still a draft somewhere. I havent turned the lid back. its still facing north. Im leaving it exactly where they left it.
UPDATE 11/9:
Went out to the pole by the transformer can this morning, the one at the corner where the yard ends and the easement starts, because the power blinked twice last night, maybe a half second each time, and I always go look at that pole when it does that even though looking at a pole from the ground has never once told me anything useful before. this time it did. theres a clip up on the crossarm, metal, bent wrong, not holding a wire the way a clip is supposed to hold a wire, just sitting crooked on top of the beam like it was set there and not fastened there, and its the same forty five degrees off true as the valve lid, I didnt measure it with anything, I dont need to measure it, Ive looked at that lid enough times by now that forty five degrees off true is just a shape my eyes know on sight.
Three now. the valve box in october, the meter in march, no, the meter was march and the valve box was october, Im putting them in the wrong order again, doesnt matter which order, three fixtures, three crooked the same crooked, not three different crooked. the picture has a timestamp burned into the corner, 03/17/26, eight twenty three in the morning. I DID NOT TAKE THIS PICTURE IN MARCH. I took it this morning standing in my own yard with the coffee going cold on the porch rail, so either the camera is lying to me or somebody else is dating these for me now and Im not supposed to notice which one it is. I put a line about not trusting timestamps on this sites own header a year ago like it was a joke for whoever found the page. it isnt anymore.
my mother used to say a crooked picture frame on the wall means theres a draft in the house somewhere, chase the draft and youll find the nail its really hanging on. she never meant it this way. anyway. blue tape is still on the valve stem, same blue, I checked it again on the way back in, and the meter still reads ahead of itself same as it has since march, or since whenever the picture says march is. they can keep setting things back down slightly wrong all over this district if what they want is for me to notice, because I notice, I always notice, just dont ask me yet what I think its for. not tonight.
