Electricity Can Be...Dangerous!

Electricity is a dangerous thing, as I mentioned yesterday. You would think that the shooting flame out of the switch would properly scare me. But after changing 14 sockets, I figured the 15th would be easy. Um, wrong.

The 15th socket located in the guest bathroom has little to no outside light as it's an interior room. I figured it wouldn't take long, so I didn't bother with a flashlight. I used the little bit of light filtering into the hallway from the windows.

First thing I discovered was that the socket was still live. Zzzzzap. Yes, I zapped myself (my Dad foresaw this, I know he did). Testing the other 14 dead sockets as I replaced them didn't save me from getting zapped by the one socket I forgot to test. Somehow the universe is unfair that way.

I ran down to the fuse box in the basement and turned off more areas of the house and ran back up. Nope, that didn't do it, so back down I went. After switching off everything short of the A/C I was in business. I pulled out the socket or at least I tried. The one screw head basically didn't work anymore and I had to muscle a pair of pliers aroung the screw until I could get it out.

You would think after this ordeal in the dark, sweating my tale off that that would be it. But no, this socket didn't have the normal 3 or 5 wires, but 7 wires! They were everywhere. I followed my Dad's advice and just put them into the new socket exactly as I found them. Somehow after 3 times as long as normal I put everything back together.

I have a new found respect for electricians. And Dad, I'm fine, a little electricity never hurt anyone...too much.