Yesterday afternoon, a Verizon technician showed up at Flannista's home to repair a very staticky phone line that was also impacting my internet connection. He hoisted a ladder to a connection box at the end of my court, and then hoisted another ladder several blocks away at a larger connection box. After 20 minutes, Derrick told me that the problem was "old copper wire that Verizon doesn't want to fix anymore because they want you to upgrade to fiberoptics. But don't worry, I fixed it. I put in a new line for you. It should be good for a while."
Derrick then stepped into my living room to retrieve some important-looking-repair-thingy he had asked me to insert into one of my phone jacks. I went upstairs to check out both the phone and internet lines and when I walked back downstairs, I saw Derrick staring at the art on the walls.
DERRICK: Did you paint all of these?
FLANN: No, I just collect it.
DERRICK: I've never seen so much art in a living room. Everywhere I look I see something I want to look at longer.
FLANN: Thank you. Repairmen don't usually have that response to this art.
DERRICK: But I'm not a repairman. I'm a poet. I write poems and short stories. I publish them online in MySpace. I've always wanted to paint -- you know, paint myself.
FLANN: Why?
DERRICK: How can you go through life without baring your soul? You've got to put it out there, man. Look at yourself in that deep way. Send that healing right out there.
FLANN: You ARE a poet. Thanks for making my day.
DERRICK: Thanks for making mine. I'll never again see anything like this in someone's house.
FLANN: And I'll never see repairmen the same way again. Thank you.
At the moment, the static is gone from my phone line and the internet seems to be humming along. The connections -- so many of them -- are working beautifully.
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