The latest

I said that I would tell you about our latest water adventure:

Sunday when we came home from church, I didn’t even notice that our electricity was off, but I certainly noticed the shock I got when I went to wash my hands! It took a while to figure out the problem, because the day that it started, someone had been caught trying to trick the electric meter on his apartment by running a wire from it to a pipe or something. So, when Will first started trying to track down our water problem, everyone told him that it was probably related to that. After two days of trying to figure out what was going on, Will and a plumber found it. We have two breaker switches for our electricity. When one flips, the other sends the electricity "backwards" through our water heater. (The plumber who helped Will figure out what was going on explained it better, but I didn’t get all the technical details.) One breaker switch was old--and Will had also rigged a light fixture not quite right--so that was happening often. Will replaced the old breaker and fixed his light, and everything seems to be working now.

Sometimes we’re still approaching the sink rather gingerly. It would probably be pretty funny to see me wash my hands now: I turn on a light and watch it, ready to jump back if it goes off, then I quickly and carefully do whatever I have to do with the water. I also think about whether or not an object conducts electricity before holding it in the water. Ceramic mug? That’s fine. Spoon? Better to set it down and let the water flow over it. Asya asks if it will hurt before she touches water, even through she didn’t ever experience the shocks

I liked something that Jaan thought up Sunday afternoon. They wanted tea, and I told them no, because there wasn’t any electricity for the teapot. (Yes, I could have heated water on the stove, but I was being lazy.) Jaan suggested that I turn on the water, then take the end of the plug for the teapot and hold it so that it went into the stream under the faucet.

So, there you have it, our most bizarre experience with utilities so far. I told Will that if I ever try to light the stove, and water comes out instead of gas. . . that's when I quit.