Last week, I went out into my backyard hoping for a quiet moment—and immediately noticed something odd.
An orange extension cord stretched across my lawn like a neon path, running straight from my neighbor’s garage into my outlet on the back wall of the house. I paused, unsure what to think. Maybe it was a temporary thing, I reasoned. Maybe they’d plugged it in and forgotten. But as I traced it more closely, it became clear the connection had been made intentionally—without even asking me. For a moment, I felt puzzled rather than annoyed—we’d always gotten along well.
Later that day, I decided to approach the situation calmly. I mentioned to my neighbor, “Hey, I think you plugged into my outlet by mistake—just so you know, that runs through my meter.” He laughed it off, saying it was “just a little power,” as if that made it okay. I didn’t want to create tension, so I simply added a small lockable cover to the outlet—a simple, respectful boundary to prevent future mix-ups.
