Blown Fuse

Christmas is a time for joy and other happy type things. It is also a time for some not so happy things also. You all know what I'm talking about. Hanging up the lights. How can something that seems so simple take hours. It also makes you say words that would make a sailor blush.

Saturday morning started out good. I went to the car dealership to get floor mats for my new car. As fate would have it they ordered the wrong ones. So I bought breakfast from McDonalds. When I got home my brother already had the brand new extension ladder out hanging the lights. We got the lights up around the front of the house with little problems. We used the lights from last year thinking they would be fine. We got to the end and opened a box we bought last year to finish off the row. We tested them, all was well. However after everything was plugged in nothing happened.

How could a unused straind of lights not work? Well we unplugged the new straind and plugged the extension cord into the the older lights. They all worked. So we went out for the afternoon and on our way home bought a new box of lights to finish the house off. We put it up. Everything was fine. Then it wasn't. I tried to convince my brother that maybe it was just too much and we should use two extension cords so the lights won't blow a fuse. He wouldn't hear it because he thought the lights weren't pulling that much power. He's in the construction biz so of course he should know.

Well, Sunday we buy more lights. The first set work, at first. Then they don't. My dad came over to see if he could figure it out. We put a new fuse in the lights. Then they worked. We unplugged the extension cord and plugged it back in. They still work. Mission accomplished.

My brother left and went back to Ocala to work yesterday afternoon. That night I plugged the lights in. Everything was fine. Thirty minutes later I went out side and the lights were out. Another blown fuse. So tonight after work I came home. I replaced the fuse again. Then unhooked the lights in a central location. I used one extension cord on half, everything was fine. Then balancing on the porch rail I plugged in another extension cord. Everything worked. At last. I wonder if the neighbors have those problems? They all put their lights up the day after Thanksgiving and all look like the house from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. You think they'd have problems. But no, just the two kids in their twenties with the dinky icicle lights have a crappy luck when it comes to the lights. Or maybe we're just idiots. Oh well, tis the season.

I guess I better go unplugg the lights for the night now.