Whirskreglubjikgarduph!
I suppose that's the best way to spell the sound I hear when my 60 horsepower, carpet beating, floor busting, dust filtrating, runs by itself Eureka sucks up yet another cord as I vacuum up the herds of dust bunnies that have laid claim to my home. The familiar pop of the circuit breaker echos throughout the house in the silence induced by the mealtime before me.
Country Fried Cord served up hot and smokey.
I have only myself to blame.
Because I married a cord-a-holic!
In my ten room house I have 37 wall outlets. In these 37 UL approved receptacles is inserted 108 two to three pronged appliance/audio/visual/God
onlyknowswhats with another 20 or so waiting in the proverbial wings for their time on the juice.
Simple math or advanced calculus will tell you there's some mighty sharing going on, worthy of investigation by the fire marshall. (And in case he's reading I live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC...that's DC, not AC, no puns allowed, this is serious business)
I'm not taking into account that a cord runs from the house to the shed, or that the garage is outletly challenged and overly plugged. Or worse, that I have a breaker breaker good buddy we got us a convoy of extension cords linked end to end from north to south in the attic, punctuated with all manner of castoff lamps to light my way to packratville.
We won't even talk about Christmas when I'm chunking in the light up Santa, the ice skating rink in the Christmas tree yard and the 2000 twinkling lights on the tree. Last year in a fit of electrical disgust I blew my fuse and yanked all the lights off the outside bushes when they all blew their fuses for the very last time. The rule about overloading is really just there as a safety measure, right? Well...I showed them, no more unsightly cords snaked in through the windows and plugged into the adaptor plugged into the adaptor that's plugged into the adaptor leading to the extension cord.
We've got adaptors plugged into adaptors, cords plugged into cords, outlet strips plugged into cords plugged into adaptors. We are turned on, tuned in, and tangled up! We are cordmaniacs, cordophiles, cordobsessive!
There's no possible feasible way to dust around these wads of electrical wonders, there's no way to hide the unsightly threading of wire from corner to corner. I can guarantee that Martha Stewart cuts the wires from her lamps so they don't dangle down from her hand rubbed tables. For show only! At night she stumbles around in the dark with a beeswax candle in a pewter holder.
It's not totally a cord-a-holics fault. Look at where the contractors put the outlets....the easiest place to wire them. For example, over an electric heating unit. Who is going to put a couch so it obstructs the heating element? Okay, so in a brief moment of re-arranging insanity I did it once. The smell of burning olefin changed my decorating ideas. So, here's an outlet, glaring for all the world to see and you've got a monstrosity plugged into it to expand the two outlets to six, each one full, cords trailing from window to door and back again...proof in fact that contractors also strive to put the outlets as far as possible from where you need them.
Or...let's put only ONE outlet in a bathroom. This is the age of the natural hairstyle, which requires a dryer, two sizes of curling irons, and a crimper to achieve that 'just gotten out of bed' look. Forget the electric razor and the fact that each family member requires their own hair dryer. And, don't forget the 'as seen on TV' hair remover that couldn't yank the dryer fuzz off the towels or the water pik...
The kitchen must be the worst, in this age of appliance heaven designed to make your life easier. Chopit, diceit, mixit, bakeit, fricasseit, burnit, openit, sealit, minceit, sliceit, steamit, just do it to it, but by George, you better have a place to plug it in. "Honey, I'm gonna unplug the fridge okay? I want to grind some coffee beans!"
Then if your cord-a-holic is a ham radio-a-holic you've also got a down through the floor, under-the-house, up through the floor, in the wall, up the attic, through the window, tied to a tree network of wires, cords, and all manner of filamentous contraptions to be plugged in, hooked in, twisted up, run through, and woven around all in the name of better reception. Or is that DB gain...or 'coming in'...or some hamradiospeak I don't speak.
And, just suppose your cord-a-holic also is a TV-aholic...this doesn't just mean the visual aspect. One must run several hookups for antennas for different stations, as well as running wires from hither to yonder to maximize the speaker setup for complete and total mind blowing how about now can you feel the bass baby throb throb pulsate window rattling neighbor offending makes my toes tingle and my bowels move sound.
Whirskreglubjikgarduph!
Oops, guess we'll need closed caption offerings tonight...