This is the face of a man who just who has had an unfortunate evening, comparatively speaking.
Let's face it - I'm behind at work. I've been making residue wipes, and I can only dry 100 at a time. It takes between 4-6 hours to dry, and it's very time-consuming, not to mention tedious and irritating, especially when you have to bang out nearly two thousand of them, and you're weeks behind.
In an effort to shave several hours off, I opted to dry to dry 300 of the chemically-treated pads in the dryer. At first, it worked pretty good.
And then it all caught on fire, and broke the dryer.
I'm hoping that it merely burned out the heating element and the thermostat, which is a relatively and simple inexpensive fix. If not, I have to buy my parents a new dryer.
Now, in my own defense, I checked with my Dad (a master chemist) before I tried it. He seemed to think it would be OK, so I wasn't alone in thinking it was a reasonable idea.
We discovered how wrong the trial had gone when my wife asked me if I could smell smoke. Being an experienced firefighter, she has a nose for such things. It was at this time I noticed that the dryer was off, and there was indeed a very strong acrid smell beginning to permeate the area. Upon opening the dryer, a rolling cloud of smoke billowed out, and we immediately began to force vent the area. Over an hour later, the house still stinks like smoke and I feel nauseous, light headed and nasty. All I can smell is smoke.
I called sick to work at the theater today, and if I feel this bad in a few hours I'm gonna do it again tomorrow, because I have to get this stuff out. So - which work gets the shaft? One of 'em has to get it.
And I lost a nice twelve hours of work because what should have been a good idea was a failure.
Now, a few things to salvage this evening, and keep this all in perspective.
Health - we have it, and I am more grateful for that than most of you can possibly imagine.
Jobs - I have three. I am grateful.
Money - I have enough to get by for a little while longer.
Family - mine is pretty great.
Friends - I wouldn't trade any of you for anything.
And yeah - it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
I'm glad I married a firefighter. It's come in handy once again.
And, most importantly, thank you all for your prayers. I can't speak for God, but it appears that He heard them, and He seems to have decided that this time, we got what we were asking Him for. I love it when that happens.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
708
3 comments:
On one occasion a young journalist challenged Thomas Edison saying to him, "Mr. Edison, why do you keep trying to make light by using electricity when you have failed so many times? Don't you know that gas lights are with us to stay?"
To this Edison replied, "Young man, don't you realize that I have not failed but have successfully discovered six thousand ways that won't work!"
On October 21, 1879, after thirteen months of repeated failures, Edison finally succeeded in finding a filament that would work. While experimenting the thought came to him, "Why not try a carbonized cotton fibre?"
After going through two spools of cotton, he eventually perfected a strand only to break it while trying to place it in a glass tube. He refused to give up and persevered with this idea for two more days and nights without sleep. Finally he succeeded in placing a carbonized thread into a vacuum-sealed bulb! Eureka! It worked.
Perseverance pays.
So, you have simply exposed an apparently sound idea for drying the stuff as having an unforeseen flaw.
The results sound like how someone who thought he knew better than the manufacturer and decideded it would be ok to ignore the warnings and light up a duraflame log in his "wood-only" fireplace, only to end up filling the house with smoke and settng off the smoke alarms.
Uh, not that *I* would have done amnythng like that - it was uh, uh, a friend of mine. Yeah. What an idiot he was. :-)
Actually, we all see this as a pathetically "school boyish", lame excuse, clearly made up using a vivid imagination, so that you could play hooky from the theater job.
Confess and we may show mercy.
Upon further investigation, it seems to be a $13 fuse, which I have ordered.
Heating Element - fine.
Thermostat - fine.
Main fuse - fine.
Thermal Fuse - toast.
Don't tell my boss.
Why was there toast in the dryer?
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