I was looking

for something the other day in the basement and came across a spare electrical outllet that was new in box.

I instantly hit it with a hammer a couple of times and threw it out.

What, you say? You threw out a perfectly good spare electrical outlet?

You're damned right I did, It was the wrong color. It was brown and all of the outlets in the house are ivory. I got rid of it as quickly as I could. Right then and there.

Why?

Simple. It was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

Now, you KNOW that when an outlet fries it is going to be either on Christmas, Thanksgiving or New Year's Day when every place in the entire country is closed except for the Chinese Restaurant that caters to people who have had their holiday dinners wolfed down by a pack of rabid dogs or burned to a crisp by a new bride.

Having an outlet handy can be a lifesaver.

Except for one thing.

The minute you install that off-color outlet you are setting yourself up for major grief.

What will happen is this: Someone, generally a spouse, will start griping that it is the wrong color. It is, we know that.

Of course, because it works, it will have low priority on the Honey-do list and there will be constant griping for you to change it to the correct color. This will go on for months. One of the things that will be said is that it is only a five minute job.

Finally when you DO get around to changing it the brittle wires of the 1939 home you live in that have become brittle will break and you will have to spend the entire weekend fishing a wire through walls and maybe even tearing out plaster to replace the broken wire. When you do fish the wire, you will have to couple the armored BX cable, which was used when the house was built to the more modern Romex cable that is what you buy these days.

The project is llikely to take days and once started must be completed. Then where the plaster has been repaired it must be painted.

Because the new paint doesn't match the old paint, it will mean the entire room needs repainting.

It will be then discovered that the room doesn't match the other rooms that were painted the same color at the same time which means the entire floor will have to be repainted.

The paint you used a couple of years ago is no longer available, so it must be color matched and the color matcher at Homeless Depot isn't running too well so you have to go to Lowes and then pick another brand of paint which requires a primer which they don't have in stock which sends you back to Homeless Depot.

A minor temporary inconvenience has just turned into a major chore.

All because you just happened to have a spare outlet that was the wrong color.

One thing, though.

Just as I was going to the bench to grab my hammer, I glanced at the wall to make sure I had a couple of good extension cords to get by if I did happen to fry an outlet over the holidays.

Come to think of it, I DID burn out an outlet last Thanksgiving and Thank God it was the one behind the end table where nobody sees it because I replaced it with a brown one like a jerk. I think I have a can of spray paint that will match up with the ivory well enough to pass muster.

Time to get out the newspaper and blue tape and tape and paper the area around the outlet when nobody's looking because I'll be damned if I want to repaint the entire downstairs.

I just hope the fumes of the spray paint go away before anyone gets home.









my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/