An orange extension cord ran like a neon path across my lawn, straight from my neighbor’s garage to the outlet in the back wall of my house. I stopped for a moment, not knowing what to think of it. Maybe it was just temporary, I thought. Maybe they had plugged it in and forgotten about it. But when I followed the cord more closely, it became clear that the connection had been made intentionally—without asking me. For a moment, I was surprised rather than irritated—we had always gotten along well.
Later that day, I decided to handle the situation calmly. I said to my neighbor: “Hey, I think you accidentally plugged your plug into my socket – just to be clear, that goes through my meter.” He laughed it off and said it was “just a bit of electricity,” as if that excused it. I didn’t want to create tension, so I simply put a small cover plate on the socket – a simple, respectful measure to prevent future mix-ups.
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