First of all, thank you everyone for your kind words and thoughts. I've read some of your comments to my husband and he also really appreciates the support from everyone.

As would be expected, this experience has make me think about my own father. My dad has an odd sense of humor. Hmmmm.... makes ya wonder how far this apple fell, eh? Actually, our humor is different. He's the one quip wonder, where I'm one that likes to set up the scene.

I think I'm going to post some of our correspondence every now and again, because I find it so funny to look back on. Hopefully, you'll find it to be as funny as I do.

Setup (remember, I'm the one who likes to set up the scene...)
When I was single, I used to have two phone lines going into my house, one for me and one for the boys. That meant that some of the phone jacks were active under one phone line, and others under the other line. When I got my cell phone, I canceled my land line since I had cable internet. My plan was to also use my cell phone for work, but that got expensive. So, I decided to keep the boys line after the youngest moved out and use it for work. This meant that I'd have to activate that particular number on all the jacks in the house.

My dad used to be a phone man, so I asked him how to switch around the wiring. Dad wrote back what seemed like explicit instructions, that included going outside into the phone box and switching around the wires. Electrical wires.

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Date: 1-17-2003
Subject Line: Little miss "do-it- herselfer" learned a bit about electricity today.

Dear Dad,

Today I followed your instructions on switching around the wires and, let's just say, it was a BAD time for someone to give me a jingle.

You guessed it. I got a really nice shock out of it. Half an hour later and my hand is STILL tingling (but nothing dramatic...) I'll admit being a bit stupid about this. I was barefoot on wet cement at the time. My bad.....

I do want you to know that I AM tenacious. I wasn't done with the job, so I bit the bullet and finished (praying the entire time that nobody would call me.) As you've explained, there is no way to cut the current going to the wires unless I want to climb a pole to do it. There are just some things I will not do.

Love,
[RisibleGirl]

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Reply from Dad:

Did I forget to mention I always use insulated needle nose pliers to move the wires around? Oops.

Love Dad

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