Time Travel Via Power Surge

Yesterday turned out to be a very strange day. Mid morning our power went crazy. Fortunately I was able to get the computer shut down and unplugged. Then we heard a big "POP!" Daniel was standing here, near the desk, trying to determine what it could've been when I noticed huge clouds of smoke billowing out from the TV! Oh! No! Daniel unplugged it and we figured it was toast. The light in the living room was gone, as was the light in the bathroom and, of course we had no power for the computer. The light in the kitchen was fading in and out. We unplugged the coffee maker to ensure it wouldn't get fried the same way the TV did.

I was ticked! Told Daniel that was the last straw! We were moving out! Went outside to calm down a bit, returned and started packing. While I was busy packing Daniel was scurrying around, desperately trying to fix the power problem. About 3 hours later he restored power to the living room. He then started in on the bathroom. Managed to rig up another light in there.

He went out to the shop and grabbed the old black and white TV. He brought that in and set it up. We found 3 stations on that. The kids were now experiencing culture shock. "I don't like that TV!" "It's too little!" Clifford will look tiny!" "It's not color!" "I want color!" Then there was the lack of a remote. No more sitting back, pushing a button to turn it on and pushing more buttons to change the channel. What a strange object! I found myself cringing as I listened to Daniel whizzing through the channels. "Stop that! You're going to strip it!" Oh my, I sounded just like my Father so many years ago! Not only that, but I now knew exactly how he felt when he uttered that phrase! LOL

Dad, I'm really really sorry! I now understand!

It was now obvious we were not going to move out. I would have to unpack everything I had packed. The kids were extremely disappointed. Daniel tried to explain to them that he was not willing to pay $50 a night just so they could watch big color TV. They were miffed!

Later, Daniel took the TV out to the shop. On a whim he decided to plug it in, just to see what might happen. It came on! No smoke! He brought it back in, unplugged the trusty B&W, plugged in the big color set the kids are so fond of and gave it a try. It worked! Actually, it seems to work better than before!

Time travel over. The kids are still disappointed we didn't get to go to a motel where they could get Disney channel and Animal Planet but, at least Clifford is big and red again :)