The Holiday season begins....

[Moonshot_1]

So, last night the wife gets some Christmas decor out and so begins the start of outdoor decorating.
Not much so far, we got a couple 4' lighted Santas and a 4' lighted snowman. Got them up and working for her, a fuse and lightbulb replacement.

She also got a strand of lights. Large multi colored bulbs for the dog kennel out by the garage.
So, now it is getting a bit dark and the wife is putting the lights on the kennel along with one of the Lighted Santas along side.

I see her out there and the lights go on. Then they go off. On, off. On, off. I do not know at the time what she is trying to achieve.

(I'm in the house at the time)

Finally I her scream "I give up!"

So I mosey out there.

Now, the kennel and the garage are right next to each other with a foot of space between.
The garage has an outdoor outlet. It is between the kennel and garage. Although a bit tight to access.

The kennel also has a heated water dish that plugs into said outlet.
This will be important later.

So I get out there and she is pissed. She doesn't understand why the lights go on and off. It's like they are flashing.

I wonder if the lights are flashing lights but I'm pretty sure they are not.

So she tries to hook up everything again while I watch.

Plugs the lights and Santa into a T receptacle and plugs that into a timer and plugs the timer, set to dusk to dawn, into the garage outlet.

Now it is dark out, so she gets the plug for the dog dish and shines the flashlight on the outlet so she can see to plug the water dish in.

The lights immediately go off and she is just beside herself.

She is really pissed now.

Anyone catch the problem?





When she tried to plug in the water dish she shone the flashlight on the outlet so she could see it. The outlet with the dusk to DAWN timer. The timer registered the flashlight as the morning sun and shut the lights off. She takes the flashlight off the timer and the lights go back on because it is DUSK. She shines the flashlight on the outlet to see if she can see the problem and "poof" they go off, then on, then off, then on....

She was battling this for at least half an hour, maybe more.

I walk out there and have it figured out in maybe 30 seconds.
 
She did not like it when I told her what was going on.

[Chrisj CMA]

That’s hilarious. Sure hope your wife isint blonde. Lol

[The emperor has no clothes]

That’s hilarious. Sure hope your wife isint blonde. Lol

It is pretty funny. But I'm not worried about her hair color. I'm a little concerned for Moon that she reads this. 

[Moonshot_1]

That’s hilarious. Sure hope your wife isint blonde. Lol

It is pretty funny. But I'm not worried about her hair color. I'm a little concerned for Moon that she reads this. 

She can probably come up with some of my electronic sparkly stories too.
She is pretty sharp, but this one just got the better of her. I think she was thinking it might be a bad connection at the outlet too.

To be fair, what I noticed was the indicator light of the timer go off too. That meant the timer was off and from there it was pretty easy to figure out what was going on.

I don't do holiday electric stuff much anymore.
Used to do it. Seems like once you hit Christmas the ice and snow really comes and your lights are encased in it. For months.
Then the next year 60% of them work. Maybe. 4 hours sorting them out and then trashing the lot at the end.

Pretty much where I was.

The idea of falling off the roof at 60 years old pretty much locked me into just doing simple easy decor.

[Jess from VA]

Mike, thank you for the best funny story I've heard in weeks.  I needed it too.  

It reminded me of a similar story about a dog with a shock collar, and every time he barked and got shocked, he peed and shorted out a circuit of the house electric.  With similar head scratching and cussing, requiring lengthy investigation.  And the dog was as unhappy about the whole episode as anybody.

PS: For years, I used to go out and wire up 50 strings of lights (no blinkers, hate Las Vegas blinkers), waterproofing everything, big cords, multiple circuits.  Days of work up, and down (usually freezing my ass off on down).  Never strung any on the house, but did my mature landscape only.

Now I take a nice fake wreath with a string of 50 lights and hang it by my front door.  And I put it up two days before Christmas, not on the 4th of July.

This reminds me, I need to check out a neighbor way down the street.  He puts out these giant inflatable lit-up Christmas figures.  But the big Santa has seen better days and is a little ripped up.  So when he's inflated, a torn strip of cloth sticks out in front of him looking like a happy Santa with a wiggling erection.    

[h13man]

That’s hilarious. Sure hope your wife isint blonde. Lol

It is pretty funny. But I'm not worried about her hair color. I'm a little concerned for Moon that she reads this.  

 

[Rams]

Standing rule here, no Christmas decorations or lights until after Thanksgiving.

One holiday at a time.

Rams

[Robert]

 

Just smile and know you are the hero.

 

[cookiedough]

that is a funny story though about the flashlight, gave me a chuckle.

What did she think after you told her?  I bet she was either laughing or more pissed off?   

We no longer do any decorating for any holiday since the kids left us for college since only the 2 of us in the house now and they do not come home for Christmas or any holiday, at least has not the past 2 seasons.  Either they have been working retail or just wanna stay home both 3.5 hours north of us now and usually even if they did come home not here until near noon then eat and spend ONLY a few hours at our house for the 3.5 hour long way drive back up north is hardly worth just 3 hours of spending time together during one day.  They usually have had to work the very next day in retail business if having that holiday off work.   WE go visit them maybe 2-3 times per year since in same boat,  we usually there by 11 a.m. spend time together until 4 p.m. then home by 8 p.m. is 7 hours of driving time in one day makes for a VERY long day driving back home in the dark at night.

[Moonshot_1]

Generally, this is the extent of my Christmas Decorating. When the weather allows I'll cruise the town for a few hours.

Lot of fun.

[Oss]

Great story, and a happy ending

Makes me happy I only have to light this