IrishOboe

What constitutes a passing knowledge of electricity?  If I was in Japan, where 30% is a passing grade, I know what I need to.  If it’s as it is in America, where I believe 60% is still passing, then I think I might pass as well.  One might say the fact that I’m alive is sufficient proof that I have my basics down.  Then there’s always that 5 on the AP Electricity and Magnetism test I took seven years ago.  How do we measure how well we’ve taught our kids?  I’ll let you judge weather my teachers did their job or not (always remembering that I was mainly my own teacher when I homeschooled, then again, I never touched the subject of electricity on my own).

WARNING:  If you think I am smart and all that, please read-on.  If you think I am an incompetent blond who dies her hair brown and has a musician space brain, spare yourself the confirmation and go look at my pretty pictures of Basel and listen to my nice harp music.

So, what brings on this contemplative post at this moment you ask?  Well, only the obvious of course!  Some dumb bunny got himself – okay herself – electrocuted.

Remember, I’m alive typing this, it actually happened yesterday, and I feel fine.

And now for the exciting details.

I like to solve problems.  One of the grand things about being in a totally new situation is that emboldens you to take risks, step out of your comfort zone, and learn to swim by drowning.  It’s one of the great thrills in life, and I have hitherto enjoyed the wonderful results of stepping out further and faster and learning by leaps and bounds.  So, when I discovered that the plastic case of my plug converter didn’t fit the outlets here I calmly set to work out the problem.

I unscrewed the case, looked at the structure, and determined that if I could shave off some of the plastic all would go well.  Lucky for me I’m an oboist and had some razor blades with me.  I set to work and after some minor adventures (no cuts) I managed to get the base to fit.  Then I realized that when I screwed the cover back on all the work would disappear, so I set about to shave the case too.

Then I decided to see if it actually would work before I went to all the trouble of shaving all the stuff off.  Thus, I sat with an exposed plug converter near an outlet.

I plugged it into a power strip that was NOT plugged into the wall (this gets me points, right?) then I plugged the strip in then I took my computer power chord (not connected to my computer – more points?) and slipped it in as it would go if the case had been there.  It worked!  Victory!  I unplugged the computer chord, then, well, here’s where it gets hairy.  I had some thought that I was worried that the exposed part would still be a little warm and I didn’t want to grasp it to unplug it if that was the case, so I lightly, quickly touched the exposed part to see.  Well, as you’ve guessed by now, I had failed to unplug the power strip, so there was still electricity flowing through!  Oww com’on don’t doc too many points for a stupid little mistake like that!  You know what I meant to do!

In after analysis the index finger of the right hand touched one prong while the middle finger touched the other, and a circuit was made for about 0.1 seconds (remember I was touching as if to a hot iron, so my hand was pulling away before the signal of pain got to my brain).  I felt a pulse not unlike when I get electric therapy (oh, yeah duh) only perhaps a bit stronger.  It went up my arm and into my right shoulder.  “Ouch!  I’ve been electrocuted!  I’m alive! I’m an idiot!!!!”  I think that sequence of thoughts took up to two seconds.  Then, thoughts of utter relief took over as I contemplated with thankfulness for this sign from God that he still has something on earth for me to do.  I unplugged and put everything away concluding that no amount of money or delayed blog posts (remember, I had just written the first line of my first update from Switzerland when I realized I wouldn’t have the power to post) were worth risking my safety for.  I must certainly get extra credit for that one.

I recalled stories of husbands fixing up electrical outlets and electrocuting themselves and surviving.  I figured since I was a live and my only remaining symptoms were two hot fingers and a racing heart (I hoped due to excitement not electrical charge) that the worst was passed.  I was comforted by the fact that it didn’t cross my body via two hands, but I decided to use my remaining battery power to look up electrical shock treatment.  Let me tell you, in such a circumstance a multiple choice test without answers on the subject of shock treatment is a very, very infuriating document.  I managed to find more helpful sites and determined that yeah, I was fine.  I request extra points on some other subject for the forethought of stopping my work on the computer to get power setup before I was completely out of battery power.

The tingling and hot feeling in my fingers remained through dinner and concerned me a little, but by bed I felt fine.  One thing I’d determined – no more electrical experiments especially in a foreign house!  The next day I bought a converter and it works fine, so today I continued with the setup of my room.  I began to feel a little homesick so I decided to bring out my MP3 player and travel speakers to get a bit of homey comfort.  I proceeded with the setup that worked in Japan: plug everything into power strip and power strip into thingy that converts outlet with ground to two pronged outlet and into plug converter and into outlet.  It’s a bit of a line up, at least it was official.  I flipped on the power strip switch and – POW – total darkness.  Great, now I’ve really screwed it up.  I tried my lamp, then the bathroom light, then I realized that I must have blown the circuit breaker for the 3^rd floor.  Sure enough, the room down the hall was without lights as well.  At this point it dawned on me that although I’d checked carefully to make sure my fancy electronic equipment could handle 240 volts I failed to think about the power strip I tossed in at the last minute . . .  I went to Stephan and asked him where the circuit breaker was and he showed me and flipped it and all was fine.  I think I should get a lot of points for this last step.  Given how obviously little practical knowledge I had with electricity, this bit of household intelligence thought of calmly and dealt with accordingly without panicking (remember the adventures of the day before!) has got to be worth something.

I surely hope my electrical adventures are finished.  I’ll have to buy more converters if ever I want to use more than one electrical device at a time, but that’s an easy $8 solution.

Yeeps, it’s now midnight and I haven’t related my Basel adventures.  I thought this would be more amusing, though, if I told you a wondered the city and the trams by myself without hitch some of you might still be thinking I have it all together . . .