Confirmation Received: I Am An Idiot

Yes, you read right. I have received official confirmation: I am an idiot. A few days ago, my 120-volt outlet that I plug my fan, my TV, and my electric burner and toaster oven into stopped working. I was convinced it must be a circuit breaker, but didn’t want to do anything with the electrical stuff until the rain was done and things were a bit dried out.

Well, yesterday, I brought in my little stool, my flashlight and box of blade style fuses and sat in front of my electrical panel, determined to get to the bottom of this. I checked the breakers for 120-volts. They were fine. I pulled out one of the fuses and it was okay, but what a paint to pull them out then put them back.

I looked on-line and discovered how to test the fuses without taking them out of the panel. I had seen the Mobile RV repairman do something on that order when he came to see what was wrong with the refrigerator. I used a multi-meter and touched one wire to ground and the other to a little place on the back of the fuse. A completed circuit showed on every single one. In other words, it wasn’t a fuse. I decided I would have to call the Mobile RV guy back out on Monday.

I did manage to repair my TV antenna handle that raises and lowers it, though I had to go to Ace Hardware to get an allen wrench that would fit the set screw.

This morning, I was sitting talking with my cousin Richard and he was telling me about how the GFCI at the house didn’t go off until after the rain stopped. He had reset it and it was now working. (I shouldn’t tell you this, but Mom and I lived there several years with a number of outlets not working because we never thought to reset the GFCI plug.)

While we were talking, it dawned on me that the GFCI plug could be the culprit in my battle with the electrical outlet. Sure enough, that is what it was. I was able to cook my dinner and run my fan on electricity instead of using up my 8 D batteries.

That’s about it for my day. It was beautiful here again, which I can enjoy even though I am a certified idiot.

Until next time…