Shock The Monkey

My little house was built in 1927.  Like many old houses here in the People’s Republic of Hillcrest, it has a certain charm.  Granted, it might have more if a gay man or if a woman lived here.  But the value of the place has steadily gone up despite my presence here and my neighbors don’t leave me notes on the windshield complaining about my yard or anything.  So I guess I must be doing something right.

Charm aside, one of the downsides to owning an older home is that every now and again weird stuff happens.  Like when you plug a lamp into a wall socket and all the power goes off.   That’s what happened to me this afternoon.

I had purchased a lamp at a funky furniture store way out in West Little Rock.  I brought it home, screwed in a bulb and plugged it in.  All of a sudden, sparks started flying from the socket followed by that whuf!  sound that the house makes when the electrical system crashes.  The irony of the fact that I managed to get through the recent ice storm with the power intact only to fry my house because of an artsy-fartsy lamp was not entirely lost on me.

Irony sucks at times like this.

I went over to the side of the house and opened the breaker box.  Everything was on.  I flipped the master breaker on and off.  I heard the hot tub come back on out on the deck.  Back in the house, the living room and bedroom were still flat-ass dead but the rest of the house and the furnace was running.

This would be an example of the weird stuff that can happen in a charming little place like this.  And it was beyond my expertise.  And so I looked up an electrician whom I had heard was good and gave him a call.  Here is a transcript of the conversation.

“Sparky’s”

“Hi, my name is tmfw and my power went down when I plugged in a new lamp I bought this afternoon”

“Well, that’s a bad lamp, sir.”

“No, it is a homicidal lamp.  Anyway, I went out and checked the box.  As far as I can tell, none of the breakers tripped. ”

“What part of town are you in, sir?”

“Hillcrest.”

“Humph.”

“You went ‘humph.’  It is never good when mechanics or electricians go ‘humph.’  Is my owning a house in Hillcrest a problem?”

“No.  But I think I know a quick fix that will save you the 200 dollars that I would charge you if I had to come over there. I’m gonna tell you what to do.”

“Really?  Should I go out to the box?”

I’m used to computer technicians.  I figured I would have to describe the problem in front of me.

“You can if you want but it don’t matter. At least not while we are on the phone.”

“How come?”

“None of them boxes in those old Hillcrest-Park Hill type houses are right. Wasn’t any of ‘em designed to handle the loads people put on ‘em with all the electrical devices people got nowadays.  But, we know that, in spite of that, the old box obviously worked, because the breakers kind of tripped.  But ain’t none of them right.”

“Kind of tripped?”

“Well, my guess is that it didn’t exactly trip.  It just kinda sent everything to the middle.

“Which means?”

“Sorry.  That’s electrician talk for the breakers look like they’re on but they ain’t. Go out to the box, turn everything off and then turn them back on.  That should take care of it.”

“So they’re really off even if they show that they are on?”

“Yessir, most likely.”

“Isn’t that a problem?”

“No sir.  The opposite would be your problem.”

“I never thought about that.”

“Yessir.”

“But I threw the master breaker.”

“Don’t matter.  All that would do is allow me to work on it without killing myself.  It won’t reset them breakers.”

“Because none of these old boxes are right.”

“Yessir.”

By now, I was at the breaker box.  I turned all of the breakers off, and then turned them back on.  It worked just as he said it would!

“You back in bidness?” he asked.

“You bet!  Thanks a lot!” I replied.

“Look, like I said, obviously your box worked because you ain’t dead and an electrical fire didn’t get out on you.  But if you ever add on to your house, or run a bunch of high dollar landscape lights or stuff like that you need to get a new breaker box.”

“Well, if I do I will sure call you to come do the work because you were awfully helpful to me.”

“I’m happy to do it.  Always glad to save somebody a step along the way.  Call me again if you ever need an electrician.”

You can bet I will.

I called the furniture store and told them I would be returning the art-deco Roman candle.  

And before I get another one to replace it, I will plug it into one of their outlets to make sure it doesn’t make like an RPG before I take it home.  

Like the man said, I’m always glad to save a step along the way.