38 Electric Outlets

Come on.  You know the song.  "Thirty-eight electric sockets in the wall, thirty-eight electric sockets.  You peel one down, you roll it up and thirty-seven electric sockets in the wall...."

I can't believe you didn't sing along with me.

Lee has a bunch more things to do in the basement before we get the inspection, which we have to pass before we can plaster the walls.  So I asked him, " Is there any non-technical thing I can do to help?"  Boy, was THAT a mistake.  Because apparently I can strip the covering off all the wires in the electric sockets,

   

cut it off, making sure I don't cut any of the wires I need to keep, then roll the wires up and stuff it in the box. Thirty-eight times.

   

Here's the thing, electric sockets are low to the ground.  So that means bending over, but I got Lee's mechanics stool with wheels.  It rolls along while also carrying the needed tools and the bits I cut off.  So handy.

   

There is another handy gadget the cuts through the rubber coating without cutting the necessary wires.  That was great, until it wasn't.  Sometimes while sliding it up the wire towards the box, it would jump off the wire and my hand or thumb would slam into the box with full power behind it.  This is rather (very) painful.  Each succeeding time on top of the previous injury is even more painful. 

   

I guess it helped that there was a talk show on the radio where they were talking about various ways people had thanked members of the military for their service.  It's hard to cry about an owie when you think about what others have given.  Not impossible, but hard.

So I scooted around the room and got them all done.  It only took 2 hours and I earned Lee's undying gratitude. 

Hah!  Did you buy that?  But he did say something about how this work is really hard on the fingers, especially rolling up the stiff wires to fit in the boxes for plastering, and he mentioned how boring a lot of electrical work is.  I guess I can do the boring stuff,  'cause he has to do the figuring which circuit goes where and how many to put on one breaker and all that kind of technical stuff.

 

I'll do the grunt work...and the crying, she said, pitifully.