Up In Smoke

Last week the electric box on the side of the house quit working. If you will recall, my really crummy Wednesday last week ended with me having electrical issues. It turned out to be a bus fuse in the box on the side of the house. (See picture above) I was down to one phase of electric until the electrician came in and hooked me back up again the next day. Thankfully I had the camper hooked up on that one phase and made it uneventfully through the night.

Today, there were issues with the front of the pantry and I had to run it 40 miles back to Lowe's and spent 3 hours sifting through 5 more pantry kits before we finally found one that was not messed up. Thankfully, I had a sweet guy that was really dedicated to finding a good one. I loaded it and drove 40 miles back home to find everyone working in the very dark hot house. UGH. Guess what? The same thing with the fuse happened again, only this time, it burned up something in the box and it smelled very electrical and very hot. They just shut it all down and waited for me. ME?? What the heck can *I* do? Call the electrician!

They call one and I call one. Whoever can come out first gets to fix it. Theirs came today, took one look at the box; the mangled mess of wires and melted plastic ick and said it was going to take several hours to change the box out IF he can find one that will fit. I have no idea what he meant 'fit'; something has to match something, but it sounded serious. He can't do it until Thursday and that is if he can find that perfect box. Soooo...

He gets in his truck and drives off into the wild blue yonder. And as the sawdust settles behind him, I walk back into my camper to crawl on the sofa and sleep it off. The very hot camper. Hot because the electric is not working. Not even the other phase of it. It was just working when the electrician was here!

I call Mike, who calls the electrician, who tells Mike to come back and check the connection. Mike, "Mr Braveman" we shall call him, comes out - and like me - doesn't want to be a crispy critter. Neither one of us know enough about electric to be comfy, but we do know the fry noise is not a good thing. He gets wood (he assures me it doesn't conduct electric), beats the connection back into place ignoring the sizzles (thanks Mike) and I am good to go again. Mike is not a crispy critter, I am a happy (?) camper and he races off to the games. He probably turned off the phone on the way. I didn't need him again any ol' ways. Yet.

Another electrician is coming tomorrow with the first electricians blessings - and probably his thanks as well. Hopefully he can fix the mess and I will still have arms and legs left to move back in.

Have you ever seen those shows where people stand in the glass box with the fan frantically blowing and the dollar bills flowing round and round them - but they can't seem to catch the money? We have plenty of flying greenbacks around here and for the life of me I can't seem to hold on to even one - it is time for them to migrate south. Or north. Or wherever they want to go. Just not here. Send the nesting ones this way please.

So another day down and another day gone. One more of those icky days went up in smoke.

Literally.

Steve you owe me. You will be paying a very, very, long time. You might even owe Mike. He was such a brave guy...