Everyone loves a sandbox. My little sisters took it to the next level.

They didn’t stop at sand castles and buried treasure. Oh, no. My sisters were budding landscape architects, sculpting canyons and ravines, depressions and cliffs, a pint-sized Badlands that would take up the entire box. Then they’d get the hose and flood the thing, turning their canyons into muddy reservoirs.

It was fun. It was amazing. And it also had its limits. Because however heroic the excavations, you never wanted to hit the wooden floor.

Exposed wood might mean splinters in the feet. It might mean warping the bottom when the water came pouring in. It certainly would mean that a plastic beach shovel had run out of stuff to do. Not that any of us consciously thought of any of this – sandboxes aren’t a place for deep reflection – but we knew how not to dig.

That’s still good to know as a grownup.

In fact, it’s the law.

Ok, the law doesn’t care much about sandboxes. (Boo!) But it does care about utility lines. That’s why we’ve got Call Before You Dig. The basics are simple: 48 hours before you do any excavation work, you have to call 811. That way, the Utility Notification Center can alert anyone who’s got an underground line in the area – power, gas, water, NextLight fiber, and so on – so that they can mark it (at no cost to you) and you can avoid it.

That keeps everyone safe. No major leaks from broken gas lines. No lethal jolts from broken power lines. No front-yard fountains when a water line is struck.

Ideal, right?

Our 811 website has all the details, including special cases like marking “private lines” on your property. Look it over. And when it’s time to turn some earth, make the call.

It’s just like thinking inside the sandbox.