Holiday disasters......

From hospital visits to fires, and the worst gift givings.

Lets here them;

Mine is that my 10 year old dishwasher started an electrical fire. No fire trucks needed , and no insurance claims filed. I managed the problem efficiently but, it could have been a lot worse.

On the bright side, I now have a motor for my grain mill. :rockin:

GilaMinumBeer said:

On the bright side, I now have a motor for my grain mill. :rockin:

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Guess that makes it all worthwhile.

Not a disaster, but still an unusual day.

As I mentioned in a different thread, we apparently had a circuit breaker trip last night, so that the furnace was off, and most of the downstairs in our house. My beer fridge was warm, but the house was cold. Got that figured out, and then my husband mentioned that the weather was getting bad for traveling. So instead of leaving on our vacation (kids and I) the next day for our 14 hour drive to visit my family, we left at noon.

We are now in Grayling Michigan, and nothing is open. We had Christmas dinner at the Grayling 7/11 and are sitting in the Days Inn.

Not a disaster, and gas station food isn't all that bad. Still, it's a unique Christmas for us.

Long time ago, when I was living in NC, my ex-wife had to work at Duke Medical Center supervising chemo treatments. I waited for her in her lobby. We had a car full of presents for her brother and his family, including our 1-year-old niece.

When we went to depart for Greensboro later in the day, found the car window smashed and all the presents gone.

The worst part, I saw a woman sitting in her car in the parking lot next to our car earlier in the day. Didn't think too much of it what with people comingin for treatments. Fortunately, I got a good look at her and was able to pick her out of a photo lineup at the Durham police station a few days later. They arrested her later that day.

YooperBrew said:

Not a disaster, and gas station food isn't all that bad. Still, it's a unique Christmas for us.

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heh. I remember staying in Grayling once at a winter resort. In the summer, it was cheap. I didn't remember the town being big enough for a 7-11 tho.

shecky said:

Long time ago, when I was living in NC, my ex-wife had to work at Duke Medical Center supervising chemo treatments. I waited for her in her lobby. We had a car full of presents for her brother and his family, including our 1-year-old niece.

When we went to depart for Greensboro later in the day, found the car window smashed and all the presents gone.

The worst part, I saw a woman sitting in her car in the parking lot next to our car earlier in the day. Didn't think too much of it what with people comingin for treatments. Fortunately, I got a good look at her and was able to pick her out of a photo lineup at the Durham police station a few days later. They arrested her later that day.

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It didn't happen at Christmas time, but your story reminded me of an incident that my brother, a cop, related to me a few years ago.

A woman in his town went to a store downtown, and seeing a shady looking guy made sure to take her purse with her. She, however, left the car running because it was winter, and it was Maine, and well, nothing much happens in Bridgeton, Maine. Except that day...

My brother got the call. Dispatch told him to go to the Ben Franklin store and see a customer about a stolen car. He asked for the name and dispatch said..."oh, you'll know her. Its' your wife!"

The car was recovered several days later, and the guy arrested. He was also wanted for several other crimes, so I guess he might have looked shady alright! Currently he's still in jail, but my SIL has not been allowed to forget it.

ouch.

Around these parts cops issue citations for leaving your car running unattended. And since it's illegal to do so, good luck getting anything out of your insurance company if someone steals your car while it's running and unlocked... you were breaking the law, after all..

One Christmas about 10 years ago I was visiting my Uncle's house in Tucson. I clogged the toilet (hey what can I say?)....but it somehow affected the plumbing in the WHOLE house! The toilet started overflowing, the toilet in the next bathroom did the same, and the bathtubs started filling up with water and small pieces of toilet paper. It was like the Deathstar on Star Wars.....I must've hit the weak spot in the plumbing and brought down the whole system!

We ended up paying a plumber triple time to come out and run a snake through the pipes...

Well... thanks to winter storms I got to play with my chainsaw and my uncle went home with a cord full of wood... A few trees went down at my parents house... keep telling them they NEED to get an arborist out there (a few iffy looking trees are tall enough that if they go, they're taking a house with them...). When they moved in to the house 15 years ago, no neighbors were in sight. Numerous winter storms later and they have a great view of the neighbors pool... 80 year old neighbors pool... *ewww*

I went to my dad's place and took my AG equipment along. He bought a Johson A419 to turn his fridge into a lagerator. When it got there it was broken so I spent an hour with customer support and a volt meter. I ended up splicing a wire and messing around with it. Now we've got two in the fridge. X-mas Miracle

I was close. Five days without power and I have an electric heat pump. Didn't have much fire wood as the insert isn't very good as a heater and the glazing gets covered with carbon, so it's useless for watching. Another day & I would have to stoked the fire with mesquite charcoal!

Still snowed in & no phone, but at least the power is on. Need to buy CO detectors and a catalytic heater I can connect to my propane tanks. Very annoying to have over 100 gallons of propane & no way of using it except for water heating.

And a larger chainsaw. I have MANY downed trees, several of which are across the driveway.

YooperBrew said:

Not a disaster, but still an unusual day.

As I mentioned in a different thread, we apparently had a circuit breaker trip last night, so that the furnace was off, and most of the downstairs in our house. My beer fridge was warm, but the house was cold. Got that figured out, and then my husband mentioned that the weather was getting bad for traveling. So instead of leaving on our vacation (kids and I) the next day for our 14 hour drive to visit my family, we left at noon.

We are now in Grayling Michigan, and nothing is open. We had Christmas dinner at the Grayling 7/11 and are sitting in the Days Inn.

Not a disaster, and gas station food isn't all that bad. Still, it's a unique Christmas for us.

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We just had the main breaker go. Middle of the huge-ass snowstorm last Sunday. Middle of the Patriots game, too. Took out half the panel, including the furnace.

I also don't have an electrician (the guy who was doing work for me on the side is now out of the business). So, pick up the phone book and start calling people who are local.

Got lucky, though, the guy I called first was up to the house within ten minutes (remember, he doesn't know me at all, I *just* called him out of the phone book). Figured out the main breaker was shot, cobbled stuff together so we'd have heat (and power in the living room; virtually nothing else in the house other than that one room). His employee was back at the house first thing Monday morning. Turns out the main breaker was corroded to hell, he can't get it apart and he can't get us a replacement (it's old). So, got a whole new box, so we're out $600 - $700 (haven't gotten the bill yet).

The electronics to the oven got fried as well, so that's another $175 part and $100 labor. At least the cooktop works, but that killed my plans to cook x-mas dinner.

So, basically out $1,000 the weekend before x-mas. Not terribly exciting, but a pisser nonetheless.

Finding 4 freezing and sick puppies on my run this morning and knowing I had no chioce but to take them to animal control.

olllllo, kudos for doing the right thing (not that I had a doubt you wouldn't) but I think you get the prize for the crappiest duty.

We cleaned the pups up as best we could; two of them were clearly sick; we really had no options. If they get healthy they will surely get adopted over an older dog. Brenda and I just don't have the resources to care for 4 sick puppies.





I promised Brenda that we would adopt another older dog when we have the opportuntiy to do it right.

I have not had an Xmas off in 6 years... nuff said.

Oh, I have a bunch of these and usually they involved electricity.

One Easter, we lost partial power to the house and had to cook our Easter ham on the gas grill. $800 later and a new electrical box we were back in business.

One Thanksgiving, our furnace went out and I had to replace the master control board. Two years later, at Christmas, that same furnace finally bit the dust and we had to replace it all together ($3,000 later).

This year was the best though. While it was -8° (-30° with windchill) we kept loosing power to our furnace (similar problem as before) and had to have someone come out and fix it. Then, to top it off, the wife got into two different car accidents (neither of them her fault) within a week, the second one on Christmas eve.

We have terrible luck around holidays.