What Husband Wouldn't?

I usually skip sleep in order to post but last week I had to skip sleep for work (grrrr) and it was work out of the house, so there just wasn’t time. Several days found me home near midnight, only to spring up early the next morning for another go. Ok, maybe “spring” is a bit of an overstatement but I was getting myself on the trains, so does my style really matter? I was terribly glad when Friday rolled around! I didn’t have to be in the city but I still got up early, to get Ross ready for Crazy Hair Day at school:

While he’d agreed to the spikes in concept, I’m not really sure he understood what he’d get until I was done. The look of pure terror on his face pretty much sums up how he felt about the ‘do until he got to the bus stop and discovered the other kids thought it looked cool. After the bus, I worked a couple of hours and then made Spätzle (German noodles) for his class’ International Lunch, which Chris ran up to the school while I went back to work.

In the midst of all this fun, we endured a minor electrical fire in the circuit breaker box, the fault of poor insulation and a badly tightened wire on the neutral bus. After determining the damage limited to the box and not requiring help from the fire department, we simply pulled the breaker from use and ran an extension cord into the kitchen to power coffee and toaster. Thankfully, we have a gas stove, so matches are all we need for stovetop use.

Yesterday was full of hockey and a birthday party. Today started again with hockey, followed this time by a trip to Home Depot for new breakers. On the advice of a knowledgeable friend, I got an AFCI breaker to replace the damaged one. An Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI) will trip if arcing is detected anywhere along the circuit wires. The AFCI is nearly twice as big as a standard breaker but does fit in the same box. I rewired several circuits in the box in order to keep things neat while making room for the monster AFCI.

Even though I’d cut the main power to do the work, Chris stood nearby with my sturdiest Aeroflex wooden hockey stick, poised to bat my arm in case current somehow snuck through the disengaged main. As we cleaned up, I thanked him for his help. Chris grinned, “Stand by, ready to smack my wife with a hockey stick? No problem! What husband wouldn’t do that?”