The Erica Show?

If in fact I am being filmed in secret as the butt-monkey for people's amusement, I hope the producers are making bank off of me.

Apparently the GFCI circuit in my kitchen failed. My dehumidfier was off, I tried turning it back on, it wouldnt' go back on. I groaned, and unplugged it, and punched the GFCI circuit, then checked the breaker. Breaker wouldn't stay on and when I tried it again, I got a sizzling noise. And there was a definite ozone/melted insulation smell.

I called the "24 hour" electrician, got voicemail.

So I called someone from church who should know, and asked him: is my house going to burn down overnight?

(Though at this point, I am ALMOST to the point of saying "Fine, I burn down with it." This year has almost broken me)

No, he said, as long as the breaker is off and the wall isn't hot, you're fine.

I hope he's right.

Then the electrician called back, he said that if the breaker was off I was probably safe, and I could also take the face plate off to reassure myself that I didn't see anything smoldering. When I did - no smoke, and while there's still the ozone smell that came after the first sizzling, it's definitely fainter.

So anyway. For my gentle readers I will say: forget my life.

The electrician is going to call back on Monday to make an appointment, his snap diagnosis - which I hope is right - is that "GFCI circuits really only last about 20 years, and then they need to be replaced, that's probably what happened," but the dishwasher and the light over the sink and the dispose-all in the sink are all on the same circuit, so NONE of those work until it's fixed.

I hand washed the accumulated dishes in the sink and now wish I had bought a dish drainer back when my old dishwasher conked out. Maybe I do tomorrow.

At any rate: I only got the Policy and Law papers graded, the ecology ones wait until tomorrow, I guess.

this is not how I want to be spending my time, figuratively (and I sincerely hope, not literally) putting out fires.

(I have a fire extinguisher but I do not think it is rated for electrical fires....)

(Edited to add: it is. But I also checked the outlet again, it's not hot, there's less of a smell around it and what smell lingers is more like ozone than burning, so I hopefully am safe)

I am really ready for stuff to stop going wrong. I almost do feel like I'm being punished for something. I don't know what. If I did, I would change it.

Every week I think "this week HAS to be better" and every week it's like the universe cackles and goes "Oh, hold my beer."


AT LEAST the starter for my hot water heater (it is a tankless gas heater) is on a different circuit so I still have hot water. It really would have broken me to have to heat water on the stove in order to handwash dishes.

And I am giving up on today and taking a warm bath and then going to bed. Everything has been very stupid for the past six weeks and it shows no sign of getting less stupid.