Solution to Word Problem of the Day

After the dryer quit and the brand new swamp cooler burned out this morning, I decided maybe these incidents were not coincidental.  (I'm a little slow sometimes.)  Feeling slight trepidations about the house possibly burning down tonight, I had a sudden inspiration to pick up the phone and call the power company.  Explaining to the nice lady that all of our electric appliances were being taken out, one by one, I asked whether we were having big power surges for the past few days.  No, she said.  She would send a technician out immediately to check our voltage.  In my ignorance I thought, How could it be the voltage?  What could possibly go wrong outside the house, that would cause all this trouble? How could the voltage to my house be more than that going to everyone else in the neighborhood?   But I thanked her, assuming we would either have to find a good, but very cheap, electrician late on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend, in a vacation community on the river (right), or be resigned to live like Mary and Laura Ingalls until sometime next week.

The tech came right over, and without warning, flipped the main circuit breaker off.  The girls' blogging was rudely interrupted!  Oh you should have seen how paralyzed these children were.  Without lights and electricity, they could not think of one thing to do!  (I laughed at them.)  Sure enough, according to the little voltage meter, our house was getting wayyy too much voltage.  How that happens, I don't know, except that a transformer wears out and wreaks havoc.  The service truck was called out, and four little looky-loo's were very entertained watching two skilled workmen replace a transformer right in our own backyard.  See Amy's recent post, complete with photos.  Within two hours, all told, everything was running again.  God is good to us, so good.  I thought we were going to have to replace a dryer and another swamp cooler motor and the air conditioner, too!

My dear husband phoned to tell me that I had just risen miles in his already high estimation of me for having the smarts to call the power company before the holiday weekend was upon us. :-D  He said it was worth many, many points.  (You know we women only award one point at a time, right?)  Now if I do something really, really dumb, it will be okay.  He will still love me. ;-)