Thursday, January 14, 2010

Electricity and Marriage

A woman in Washington has been charged with assault for switching the wires in her husband's saw because she was angry with him.

Reminds me of why I don't work on electricity with Irish Woman around.

A few years ago, our dishwasher died.  We went to the store and bought a new one.  Delivery was free, but the salesman wanted $150 to install it.  Being a manly man (read moron), I decided that I could install it myself.

The new dishwasher was going to be delivered sometime on Saturday, so I wanted to disconnect the old one after work on Friday.  It took me about an hour to get all of the molding and cabinetry out from around the dishwasher.  After I had gotten the thing pulled a few inches out from under the counter, I saw that the power line was soldered in.  I would have to cut the line and run a new one.  No big deal.  While I found my wire cutters in the toolbox, I sent Irish Woman down to the basement to hit the breaker.  After a few minutes, the lights in the kitchen went out.

I shouted downstairs "Is that the right breaker?"
She heard "Did you hit the breaker?", and of course answered "Yes!".

I took hold of the power line, and cut through it.

POW!

Next thing I knew, I was across the room, smacked up against the refrigerator.  All of the lights in the house are out.  I had not only blown the breaker for the dishwasher, but had also blown the house main.

From the basement, as I did a quick inventory of all my parts and pieces, I heard:

"Honey?..... Sweetheart?......"

About a minute later, I heard her coming up the stairs, slowly.

I growled "Do not come back up here right now".  I then heard her head back to the dark basement.

I collected myself, found a flashlight, and headed down to the basement to hit the house main breaker.

Luckily I was not hurt.  I learned two things that day:

1.  Switch off your own breakers.  What happened was my fault, not hers.
2.  The Irish Woman is a jinx, and I will never do anything remotely dangerous around her.

That's my philosophy, and it's worked well so far.

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