Ghost Cables

 

It's been about forty five years since the City of Chicago first allowed cable television within the city limits. Mayor Richard J. Daley did not want cable TV in the city, so he blocked it. Probably because he hadn't figured out how he could profit from cable. After a long wait, Mayor Daley finally died and we eventually got cable. Since the mid 1980s cable has flourished in the city. Companies have come and gone, merged, and been bought up by the big boys. During all those permutations, those cable companies apparently visited the building that I now own. Each and every one of them strung their own cables from the pole in the alley to my building to provide entertainment to the residents. From what I can figure out, there are cables from DirecTV, RCN, and Comcast, along with some unknown providers. So I have at least five different cables strung across the alley to my house. Only one of them delivers a product. Yesterday Xfinity (Comcast) came and disconnected one of them and strung a new cable. They left the old cable attached to my house with nothing connected at either end. So I went out there with a pair of wire clippers last evening and at least got rid of that bit of cable company laziness. Unfortunately I cannot get rid of the other cables that run from the pole in the alley to the wall of my back porch. Ghost cables that go nowhere. They are unsightly, but they do provide a perch for the multitude of birds that seem to love our yard. I know this because right below those ghost cables are splotches of bird poop. Usually dropped dead center on each of my patio chairs.

They go nowhere, attached to nothing