Saturday morning at approximately 6am, I was in the kitchen getting Diego�s breakfast ready when the air conditioner kicked on. That�s right, we�re still running the AC here in Texas during October and sometimes on into December. Anyway the AC was running and I heard this popping sound. I went into the hallway thinking it was coming from the AC/furnace unit there. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw sparks shooting and dense black smoke billowing out of the surge protector for my computer.

I raced over there in my sleep-addled stupor and tried to pull cords out of the surge protector. I ended up burning myself in the process and was unable to get any of the cords out. Luckily for me, my computer is on one of those carts and not a full-fledged desk so it has wheels. I tore the computer away from the wall knocking the printer into the floor in the process and ripped the surge protector out of the outlet.

There was a considerable amount of pungent stinky smoke in the house so I went to the window there in my room and struggled to get it open to no avail. I opened the front door and raised the window on the screen door.

I disconnected the surge protector from everything and took its scarred remains outside to contaminate the air out there instead of the air in the house. Check out these photos!

Here is the front

Here is the back! Check out that big hole!

~That�s my new kitchen tile. Feel free to ooh and ah at this point.~

Thinking I may be able to get a modicum of sympathy from my husband I called him. He instead, decided to yell at me for not having a fire extinguisher.

I kept looking for signs of life over at Mom and Dad�s and at about 6:30 grew tired of waiting and chased Diego down and put him in his carrier and went over to their house with him. I was sitting on the stairs in a weepy mess when Daddy got up a few minutes later as a result of Taco barking because Diego was meowing.

I had talked to Daddy and Bubba about a phenomenon I was having in the trailer where the lights would dim and if an appliance would come on they would get brighter again. I was certain the refrigerator was at fault for this. I was going to plug the fridge into an extension cord in another part of the house and see if the lights still dimmed. Bubba had discussed seeing if an electrician friend of his could come over and check it out.

I went back to the trailer and turned the electricity off at the meter and took my frozen foods over to Mom�s. I called my brother and explained the situation and he called his friend. At this point, Daddy was convinced that the problem was the computer surge protector going out. I had burned up the surge protector on the TV the previous Sunday but had thought that since it was more than 5 years old that it might just be time to replace it. Of course, there hadn�t been any fireworks when that one went out�just the icky burned electrical smell that had pretty quickly dissipated.

This isn�t the end of the story but I�ve got to get ready for work now.

More later.

The suspense is killing you. I can tell.

Sa-land

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