Yesterday, a coworker, Jer, was belittling me and cleaning out under my desk. It’s pretty much a space heater graveyard under there. It’s freezing in my area and I have burnt out two space heaters and am working on my third. It’s not my fault I can see my cold breath in there. I could DIE by catching myself on fire because I sit so close to the space heater without a space heater.
So, Jer is rooting around under there, yanking my mini Christmas tree in its holder out of it’s hiding space and telling me I’m messy (eye roll).
Jer: Why do you have so many space heaters under here?!
Me: Oh…those don’t work.
Jer: Then why are they still here?
Me: I’m hoarding them. And they don’t work.
Jer: None of these work? Are you sure?
Me: Serious stare.
Jer: So, I’m throwing these away. (And he yanks one out and throws it across the room into a box he recently dedicated as a trash box)
Jer: Hey! Hand me the scissors! (He says this while trying to pull the cord for the other space heater out from behind the desk. He yanked the cord a couple of times and apparently came to the conclusion that the cord was stuck somewhere)
Me: I am pretty sure that’s plugged in.
Jer: No it’s not (he looks at me like I’m stupid. It’s my desk area. I would have trusted me concerning the plugged-in-ness of items)
Me: Please check first, you don’t want to electricute yourself.
Jer: (He has obtained scissors) It’s not plugged in! (Proceeds to cut the cord with the metal scissors. As I said, the heater was plugged in and sparks flew.)
Jer: ….I guess you were right.
Thankfully, Jer did not electricute himself, but I got singed a little bit from a flying spark. It was all very exciting.
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January 8, 2010 at 2:53 pm
SoMi's Nilsa
And this is why I cringe when my husband says he can change our lighting fixtures. I just had to leave the room for fear of watching my husband electrocute himself. Thankfully, he walked away unscathed.
January 9, 2010 at 10:03 am
Nicole
This reminds me of two family near-electroshock experiences:
1987: My unattended 3 year old brother decided he wanted a shave and a haircut. He got up on the bathroom counter, filled up the sink and sat in the water. He cut his hair with scissors and turned on my dad’s corded electric shaver. Then he decided he wanted to cut the cord…..sparks flew and the power surged. We found my brother dazed on the floor, with shorn hair and a pair of blackened scissors in his hand. My family still has those scissors
2002: My father, an audiovisual engineer, was working on a very large, old console tv. Despite his years of working on cathode ray tubes, this particular one gave him a shock so bad that it singed his eyelashes and sparks flew off his tongue. He had a bad chemical burn on his tongue, which affected his ability to eat for weeks. In the ER, the doctor said his heart rhythms were all over the place, and he shouldn’t have survived the near-electrocution, and God had kept him on the earth for a reason. (Interestingly enough, the doctors said the same thing when he survived a nearly fatal rollover crash last year http://davidewatson.blogspot.com )