it was almost tragic

So we've been so busy that I haven't had a time to share the story but it was SCARY!

This seems like a simple light socket sitting simply behind a side table....

But nooooo.....

This light socket almost caused us some serious problems. We were sitting in the living room one night a couple weeks ago and I went to plug in my computer and it started making crackling, sparking noises. Mikel told me to immediately unplug it (which I did- I'm good at following instructions) and then we called emergency maintenance (because it was after normal hours). While we were waiting for them to come it started up again and we ended up losing power in about half of our living room including to our TV, DVD player, and internet router.

Once the maintenance guy got here and took off the outlet cover (hold onto your pants, this is going to get technical), the plastic thingys that keep the different wires separate were apparently melted together and they were even the big kind with right kind of grease stuff inside. I don't know exactly what him and Mikel talked about but I do know that they both seemed really concerned and had never seen anything like this happen before.

The maintenance guy had to leave to get parts and I asked Mikel if this would be a bad time to tell him that I had heard that noise before. As you can imagine, that didn't go over too well but, in my defense, it just happened once and I wasn't even sure what it was and it stopped really quickly. Plus, I was home alone and the TV was on so it didn't seem so loud and dramatic. (Yes, in retrospect, I realize it was a terrible decision not to tell anyone or investigate further but I learned my lesson.)

The guy came back and the outlet is now working and our apartment didn't burn down! On Monday morning, the normal maintenance guy came and checked up on the work and actually changed a couple things (should I be concerned?!) but everything is ok now. The only causality of the process was the DVD player which no longer works but we'll take it.

On a side note, for a couple month before this every time I set my computer down I got a little shock (like static electricity, socks on the carpet). We had no idea why and it wasn't enough to really think twice about but now-- no shocks! Turns out, it was another sign that I ignored. Whoopsie!!