Mama said knock you out

On Friday I went to my parents’ house after work. My mother’s air conditioner kept blowing the circuit in her house so I decided to go out and have a look.

It turned out that my mom had a monstrous window air conditioner and her pool filter running off a 15 amp circuit breaker. I pulled it out and put in a 30 amp circuit breaker and it worked like a charm. I celebrated by jumping in my mom’s pool.

When my mom came outside, I explained the problem and told her that I fixed it all in five minutes.

I expected her to be overjoyed but instead she seemed to be deep in thought. She said, “Do you think that is the same problem we have in the kitchen?”

In our house growing up (and still to this day for the unfortunate souls still living there), we were only able to use the toaster oven OR the toaster OR the microwave OR the dishwasher. Activating more than one device tripped the circuit and required you to go down to the basement and reset the circuit. This happened hundreds of times – usually when one of us didn’t notice that the dishwasher was on and we microwaved a snack. It is a frustrating situation.

When I told my mother that yes her entire kitchen is running off a 15 amp circuit breaker and yes I can fix that in five minutes next time I come out, her mood turned to anger. “You mean to tell me that it only takes a three-dollar part and five minutes and I’ve been up and down those goddamned stairs a hundred goddamned times and your father could have fixed that years ago?”

I quickly dried off and went home before my dad got home from work.

When I told my triumphant story to my friend, hoping to get the accolades that my mother deprived me of, my friend said, “What happens if your parents’ house burns down?”

I said, “Well, I suppose my mother will stop complaining about her air conditioner.”

When I spoke to my mother the next day, I asked whether her smoke detectors had fresh batteries. You know, just in case. She said, “We got rid of our smoke detectors. They were too much trouble. That one in the hallway went off every time I fried something.”