Christmas Adam!
Dec. 24th, 2013 01:38 amYay, it's Christmas Eve Eve! Or as some fools on Tumblr are calling it, Christmas Adam! We are celebrating by having Loki in for a visit. This is approximately terrible.
So, his first interference came when Alys and I were putting up the Christmas tree lights. There was, of course, the usual bullshit with trying to make all of these particular devil lights work, and much arguing with them as we wrapped them around the tree, but that's entirely normal.
Then I plugged in a strand of lights. Everything was fine. I was about to start wrapping it when I noticed a small tangle, where one of the lights' clips had gotten caught around the cord. I went to untangle it, and in the process of doing so --which might I add, was a very mild series of movements and not anything exciting or complex-- in the process of doing so, I tripped a breaker and killed all the outlets on the walls closest to the tree.
Umwhat?
Much stressful running about and investigating breaker boxes and the like, only for mom and I to find that no breaker was tripped, and whaaaat? We even tried flipping the most likely breaker off and then on again, which weirdly turned off the light next to us, but didn't fix the problem. That previous sentence was foreshadowing.
Eventually Sparr went downstairs and found that in the separate breaker box, which was supposed to only ever be for the generator, no really, nothing else, there was something tripped. He flipped it and the tree resumed power.
That's okay, that's only a very mild introduction of gremlins. Mom and I ran off to the airport to go get dad (which was its own special brand of hell, involving delayed planes and intense traffic), and in the middle of circling the terminals, got a call from Alys. About how the fire/CO2 alarm had been going off (but it's okay, nothing seems to be on fire).
Umwhat?
Through discussing things with her and Sparr, ayep. It would beep for about ten seconds, shut off, and repeat the whole mess about four minutes later. When mom and I returned home, we determined that it was two of the house alarms doing this --the one in the basement by one of the breakers, and the one at the veeeeeeerry top of her room, twenty feet off the floor and impossible to reach.
We flung open some windows, put batteries in other smoke/CO2 alarms, and set about trying to make that one stop being so gorram annoying. This involved a very friendly trip over to Mr. Next Door's, to borrow his ladder. Spoiler alert: we still couldn't reach that one to unplug it.
(They don't have batteries, it should be noted. They plug into their respective ceilings.)
Luckily, having opened the windows for a while, the damn alarms stopped chirping. It will be totally "hilarious" if they go off tonight while mum and da are sleeping (hint: no it won't), and tomorrow mom has to do a lot of depressing homeowner calling people up to complain until someone helps fix the problem.
(The best guess, according to the internet via mom, is that sometimes when you flip a breaker with an alarm on it, said alarm freaks out. However, the alarm took some time before it did anything wonky, and then said weirdness lasted a lot longer than it ought've. The second best guess is that we've too much plugged in and too much heat and therefore too much CO2.)
So that's our Christmas Adam. I hope yours1 was better.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Or, you know, your Sunday
PostScript: On the plus side, we did get to eat at Superdawg today, which is like a Chicago institution of AWESOME, and I got to go to FANCY PENCIL LAND, which would make![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ednoria hopelessly jealous were she reading this post.
So, his first interference came when Alys and I were putting up the Christmas tree lights. There was, of course, the usual bullshit with trying to make all of these particular devil lights work, and much arguing with them as we wrapped them around the tree, but that's entirely normal.
Then I plugged in a strand of lights. Everything was fine. I was about to start wrapping it when I noticed a small tangle, where one of the lights' clips had gotten caught around the cord. I went to untangle it, and in the process of doing so --which might I add, was a very mild series of movements and not anything exciting or complex-- in the process of doing so, I tripped a breaker and killed all the outlets on the walls closest to the tree.
Umwhat?
Much stressful running about and investigating breaker boxes and the like, only for mom and I to find that no breaker was tripped, and whaaaat? We even tried flipping the most likely breaker off and then on again, which weirdly turned off the light next to us, but didn't fix the problem. That previous sentence was foreshadowing.
Eventually Sparr went downstairs and found that in the separate breaker box, which was supposed to only ever be for the generator, no really, nothing else, there was something tripped. He flipped it and the tree resumed power.
That's okay, that's only a very mild introduction of gremlins. Mom and I ran off to the airport to go get dad (which was its own special brand of hell, involving delayed planes and intense traffic), and in the middle of circling the terminals, got a call from Alys. About how the fire/CO2 alarm had been going off (but it's okay, nothing seems to be on fire).
Umwhat?
Through discussing things with her and Sparr, ayep. It would beep for about ten seconds, shut off, and repeat the whole mess about four minutes later. When mom and I returned home, we determined that it was two of the house alarms doing this --the one in the basement by one of the breakers, and the one at the veeeeeeerry top of her room, twenty feet off the floor and impossible to reach.
We flung open some windows, put batteries in other smoke/CO2 alarms, and set about trying to make that one stop being so gorram annoying. This involved a very friendly trip over to Mr. Next Door's, to borrow his ladder. Spoiler alert: we still couldn't reach that one to unplug it.
(They don't have batteries, it should be noted. They plug into their respective ceilings.)
Luckily, having opened the windows for a while, the damn alarms stopped chirping. It will be totally "hilarious" if they go off tonight while mum and da are sleeping (hint: no it won't), and tomorrow mom has to do a lot of depressing homeowner calling people up to complain until someone helps fix the problem.
(The best guess, according to the internet via mom, is that sometimes when you flip a breaker with an alarm on it, said alarm freaks out. However, the alarm took some time before it did anything wonky, and then said weirdness lasted a lot longer than it ought've. The second best guess is that we've too much plugged in and too much heat and therefore too much CO2.)
So that's our Christmas Adam. I hope yours1 was better.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Or, you know, your Sunday
PostScript: On the plus side, we did get to eat at Superdawg today, which is like a Chicago institution of AWESOME, and I got to go to FANCY PENCIL LAND, which would make
ednoria hopelessly jealous were she reading this post.