how do you know when it’s time to drive away and never look back?

You know how just yesterday I was talking about changing my house, that love can only go so far? Well, I think my house must read my journal. And now it’s taking its revenge.

I might have thought the faucet issue was a coincidence. We went to Home Depot for a new one, but didn’t find even one faucet that we liked. And we couldn’t think of any other faucet-like stores around so we went home to a kitchen with a faucet laying around in several pieces and ordered take out.

But now the electrical is out to get us.

P. was very unhappy with an outlet in the living room because it is positioned so low to the floor that someone cut off part of the outlet cover so it would fit around the moulding. However, we found that we can’t move it up to regular height because there’s a joist just above it that runs the length of the wall. (Yes, our house is oddly shaped. Stop talking bad about it, it will hear you!) We considered our options and decided to move the outlet to the floor, just next to the wall. Only, we’ll do that part when we replace the flooring. For now we thought we’d just take out the outlet and put the wires in a junction box to keep them safe.

I was working as always, and so P. decided he would do it. How hard could it be? Turn off the circuit, take off the outlet, put the wires in a junction box, put wire nuts on them, close the box, and turn the power back on. It didn’t take him long to come up to get me.

He plugged in a light to find out what circuit to turn off. He turned off the circuit, the light went off. He started to unscrew the wires from the outlet. The overhead lights started flickering. One of the outlet wires started sparking. Ghosts or fucked up electrical?

We did an experiment. We plugged a second light into the outlet and both lights came on. Including the one that had gone out before when he turned off the circuit. So, we turned off the circuit for the overhead lights. When we jiggled the outlet, the two lights plugged into it started to faintly glow.

So, we did what any normal person would do. We grabbed our cats and jumped in the car and never looked back!

Actually, we turned off the main breaker and with a flashlight, we took off the outlet, stuffed the wires into a junction box, capped them off with box wire nuts and electrical tape, screwed the cover on the box and stuffed the whole thing back into the wall. And taped a piece of drywall over the hole (as is the ancient custom for keeping the evil out). And breathed a sigh of relief because we had done it. We had conquered our house. We fought back against the powers of evil and darkness. We held off the curse and vanquished it with our wit and skill.

We turned the power back on and our kitchen lights no longer worked. And our dining room lights started flickering. Then, our living room lights went out. We assessed what we knew: don’t answer the telephone; don’t go exploring the darkened house alone; don’t believe the voices, they lie.

We made some margaritas and went upstairs to watch TV. Which still worked. And which looks pretty good in the dark.

DIY network should really start showing horror movies — stop showing all that fictional stuff and start airing some reality shows.

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