When Dumb Wiring Attacks

Before I get into the meat of this post, I thought I should tell you about a little tidbit we discovered at yesterday's picnic. While we waited for the chance to introduce Sandi to my colleague Bill's new wife Elizabeth, we were talking to Ray, the head of the physics department (to be more precise, Ray is the physics department, and the astronomy department as well), and his wife, Andrea. We were discussing the adoption proceedings, and amazingly, they actually worked with Bethany years ago. We had heard of a Tri-Cities branch from the Knoxville folks, but we had no idea I worked with some of its former members. Did you just feel that? I think the world just shrunk a bit more.

That helps transition me to today's news . . . well, in no way at all. Several weeks ago, we received a night light for the nursery, which Sandi happily took into the room to put in place. She found, much to her chagrin, that the outlets in the nursery were inexplicably upside down. Fast forward to today, and when Sandi arrived home from work, she wanted to realign them. This, of course, requires someone to go downstairs to cut the breakers while she works. Did I mention that our breaker box is completely unlabeled? So I go downstairs with my cell phone to determine which breaker juices the wiring to the nursery. This is where things get ridiculous; I had to kill two breakers to knock out the power to those two outlets, which are on opposite walls. Also, it would seem that this maneuver also killed the electricity to the entire living room. Get this, though; the outlet on the shared wall with the living room was on the other breaker! In addition, these two breakers power most of the bedroom (the television was still operable, but by this time I was out of eyelids to bat) and the refrigerator's outlet in the kitchen. Call me crazy, but this does not seem like typical electrical work. I have theorized that this house was some contracting apprentice's final project; either that, or we are on the cutting edge of home design. Um, great?

The cumulative fatigue of the day is about to claim me. Have a great day tomorrow!