Thursday, March 3, 2011

Sometimes Old Is Suspect

I feel like Mrs.O'Leary and her cow.

I'm making breakfast. Frying bacon in a skillet I bought at the thrift store.

The skillet dates back to the '50s (Allen says the '80s) and excessive scrubbing successfully removed most all the grunge I found hidden around the screws, the handle and the grooves inside the frying surface. It works perfectly well. I enjoy humming along to its buzz/hum. Hummmmm. Hummmmm. Sometimes I hum in harmony.

OK. Bacon done. Pancakes cooking. Four done and four in the pan. When BANG. And I mean BANG!!!!

Allen feels his side of the motor home shake, rock 'n roll. The skillet stops buzz/humming.

OH MY GOODNESS! I've shorted out Otto (our motorhome's name) with my ancient electric skillet.
And then I hear other campers scrambling about. "Did you lose power?" I hear one say to the other. "Yes. You, too?"

Oh my goodness. My skillet is that cow. And it zapped the entire campground.

Whom should I tell?

We finish breakfast and I ponder our plight. Lawsuits, skyrocketing insurance coverage, our adventure coming to an end. We plug in our generator to test our wiring to see what damage I've done.

Nothing. We're fine. I hear other campers' generators running and they're fine, too.

So I stroll outside and casually ask our neighbor, "Hey, buddy. Any idea what happened to the power?"

"You bet," he says. "See that dangling power line?" He's pointing to a pole about half a block away. "It just up and sparked and snapped. I saw the whole thing."

Not me. IT WASN'T ME! No way my skillet could take down a mighty power line. NO WAY!

I'm off the hook. But what about my skillet? It's in the trash. Just in case ...

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