The next day I had the pre-dawn alarm on but I clearly had bronchitis. All night I’d been hearing Jethro Tull’s Aqualung in my head and I’d coughed enough I probably had black eyes.
I was pissed. If I’m going to have a respiratory system this weak, I should at least have the fun of being a chain smoker!
Once again, the furnace gave out. It was -30 that morning. Mrs. Curmudgeon and I were both shivery. “Well, it’s been a good run,” I thought, “but now we’re gonna’ die.”
Instead Mrs. Curmudgeon cranked the stove (I’d forgotten I’d hauled the wood!). We both sat near it. Barely warm enough and totally miserable.
After a while, I bravely went back into the basement. There was still a trace of fuel oil. A puzzlement.
With more investigation I discovered the laundry room lights, kitchen lights, and the freezers (!!!) were kaput. Also, the oven’s clock was reset to 12:00 and the fan in the bathroom didn’t work.
What fresh hell was this? We had some power but not no power and not all power? Is not home AC power a binary construct. What the hell is indicated by “half power”? I was baffled.
Back in the basement I started mucking about with the circuit breakers. None seemed tripped. Yet checking appliances and two dozen staggering trips up and down the stairs verified that some circuits which were ostensibly ON had no power but others (which were also ostensibly ON) did.
I flipped circuit breakers and checked lights and couldn’t figure it out. No heat or smoke from any threatening places. No clearly tripped circuits, it was very windy outside but that would cause a “power outage” not unspecified localized inside-the-house brownouts.
My working theory was that the -30 morning had chilled something somewhere and that shrunk it just enough to sever a few contacts. It seemed a stretch but I had no better ideas.
Mrs. Curmudgeon told me to call an electrician. I complained that I’d never yet coaxed an electrician come to my house without weeks of begging and I’d tried many times. She made the call. I went back into the basement and swore a lot, then the furnace and the lights went on. All hail the power of swearing!
One of the kids showed up, sussed out that the heat was on (which matters not one bit to the lad) but the Wi-Fi was down (which is a DEFCON 4 tragedy). He grabbed the car keys and fled. That’s how it’ll be in the zombie apocalypse. Me and the dog will try to hold the fort against overwhelming odds (and fail), Mrs. Curmudgeon will be trying to call for help from a service guy that’ll never come, and the kids will split for a Starbucks somewhere.
Clearly out of my league, and too sick to rally either body or brain, I collapsed in the chair by the fire.
Later, something interesting happened: I fixed everything. I cleaned mouse droppings out of the breaker box with my shop vac and was having a fine game of pitch with my loving family. This made no sense because I was about to play a joker on Trump and there’s no earthly reason why you’d play pitch with wildcards. Also, my shop vac is out in the shop beyond snowdrifts and I was in no shape to brave -30 to get a fucking vacuum.
Then I woke up. So much for that. Even in my dreams I work like a dog.
Once again, the furnace was off. So were some (not all) of the lights.
Careful to make sure I was awake lest I set something on fire, I lit one of my many oil lamps. (It’s better to light one in the daytime than try it at dark.) Then I muttered something about poltergeists and crashed in bed.
Relative time of 90 seconds passed (4 hours by the clock) and an electrician came. An electrician came to my house! Holy shit! Mrs. Curmudgeon came through again!
I took him to the panel and explained the anomalous information; no power to the furnace, no tripped circuit breakers, no pattern to the dead circuits, intermittent power on and power off.
We heard a sound.
“Does that sound like sparking to you?” I asked.
He whipped off the panel cover and we both got a clear view of the 100-amp main breaker sparking. I was delighted! The easiest diagnostics you could ask for.
He explained that interrupting the “B” leg of the A/B 240 line in would affect “every other” circuit. The sparks were on the B leg and not the A leg. Bingo! I love simple explanations!
It’s a ten-minute job to replace a breaker and he was costing a mint just standing there. So of course, he didn’t have the part. We spent an hour working the phones (him and me both… cell phone only because my landline phone was off it’s rocker due to power surges). Eventually he procured something and installed it. I haven’t yet gotten the bill but I’m sure it’ll cause a coronary.
The situation had nuked my main Wi-Fi antenna. I still have (and run) the old router though. (Two Wi-Fi routers in my house! Two is one, one is none!) With the old Wi-Fi running, Mrs. Curmudgeon had Netflix which is a key component of her healing process. The kids had YouTube which is more necessary than air to a Millennial. Sadly, my squirrel stores were off line. I keep the squirrels on a NAS/RAID and had unplugged it in the middle of the electrical issues. It’s on a surge protector but so was the newer better Wi-Fi router that died. Also, I didn’t trust my addled self to reboot the precious NAS/RAID in my condition. All this is fine, keeping the family happy was highest priority and I couldn’t think straight anyway.