you've got to be kidding me

[slim]

This problem is impossible. At least, it's impossible to connect the houses to the utilities on a flat sheet of paper. In fact, it's impossible in the Euclidean plane (a flat sheet stretched to infinity) and on most other two-dimensional surfaces. Some people have a trick to get around the problem: they send a gas, water, or electric line through one of the houses. Of course, real utility companies don't need tricks. The real world is three-dimensional, so power lines can go over or under each other.