I've been working at my local power company for 26 years now, and 17 of those were on the line crew. About 15 years ago my stand-by partner and I got dispatched out around midnight for a small power outage affecting a dozen or so houses.

I arrived on-scene first, and since I had the pick-up truck and my partner had the bucket truck, I rolled down my window, plugged-in my spotlight, and started riding the line out, trying to find the reason for the outage.

About halfway down this little dead end country lane, this lady in a robe comes running down her driveway, out into the middle of the road, and starts waving her arms at me. I pulled up next to her and she proceeds to start punching me on the shoulder thru the open window of my truck. After 3 or 4 punches, I shined that million candlepower spotlight in her face and that causes her to stop and take a few steps back.

After a few seconds of hyperventilating, she starts screaming about how the new Harry Potter book just went on sale at midnight, and that her son is bring her a copy right now.....and if I don't get the lights back on by the time her son delivers the book, she is going to kill herself.

She then walks back up her drive way, and I finish riding the line out. I find a broke tree limb on the line and knock it off with an extendo-stick. Then I call my partner and he re-energizes the line. I meet-up with my partner and we have a good laugh about the crazy Harry Potter lady, and then we go home.