Part Five,

a shocking revelation . . .

You may recall that in Part Four of my water heater saga, I told of my paternal uncle’s history as a native of the Mississippi delta. And wouldn’t you know it? Oral histories and bad memories usually congeal in skewed reportage. He didn’t get knocked dead (and then revived) when moving a TV tower. It was a tower for a private radio system. A long lost cousin set me straight; but the radio tower did nothing for her and her siblings’ TV reception.

But never mind all that. Let’s get back to the water heater. After my son departed, I had re-soldered the demonic valve for the third time, and set about connecting electricity to the heater. (The second solder attempt had failed, although the leak did not make itself known until my son was miles away.) Ever poorly vigilant when it comes to personal safety, I first (thought I had) ensured that the power to the heater had been turned off at the circuit breaker panel.

Note to self: When turning off electricity to a device in which you are about to expose bare wires and then touch those bare wires, ensure that you turn off the circuit breaker that controls the electron flow to the object of your attention.

Yes, you see, in my circuit breaker panel there are two water heater breakers. That’s because there are two water heaters. And the water heater that I disabled just happened to NOT be the one I intended to work on. In keeping, then, with the laws of logic, the very next thing I did was take a razor knife and cut into the wires that were still chock full of electrons. When that happened, some of the electrons -- I didn’t try to count them -- broke free from their captivity inside a wire, and rapidly surged through the metal handle of the razor knife, and into my stupid body.

I really cannot recommend to you that method of discovery. If you can only imagine what it feels like to have the hell shocked out of you, leave your wonder right there, in your mind. Don’t go trying to experience the thing for yourself. You won’t like it.

And as for me, when I detached myself from the wall I had just been slammed into by the devilish current, I could think only of my uncle, and how amused he would have been.

As for you armchair critics who know everything, be advised that I DO have a little battery-powered meter that detects electrical current; but it was upstairs at the time.

(to be continued)