There's a Costco Trip After the Bathtub Remodel

Last Saturday we found out that a good portion of our outside and bathroom electrical outlets stopped working. This included the outlet our garage freezer was plugged into. As these aren't necessarily outlets we use regularly (minus the freezer, which just hadn't been opened), we hadn't noticed this had been a going concern for a few days. This was unfortunate because it was full of now completely thawed meat from my last Coscto run. 

The situation was also unfortunate because the forecasted high for the weekend was hovering around 100 degrees and I did not want the rotting meat in my garage.  We opted to put the garbage cans outside the garage and hope the racoons and other critters don't help themselves. To secure the cans further, we piled a bunch of heavy stuff on top of the cans and and stuck them as far away from the house as possible. 

Maybe I should mention, the garbage cans here are of the kitchen trash bin variety. Those big fancy cans one finds in Phoenix and the surrounding metro don't exist here. Everyone either loads up trash bags and whatever boxes/stuff to be removed and sets them at the curb or has the kinds of cans I mentioned. On occasion we do both. But, I digress. 

Frustrated that once again we have a problem that will potentially cost us more than we budgeted for (like a new air condoner and our 2021 income taxes), we called a friendly electrician and asked if he wouldn't mind taking a look at our electrical situation. He came out Saturday afternoon and was dumbfounded. After puttering around for quite some time, he promised to come back Monday morning and figure it out. 

Monday he figured it out. When I went to pay him, he said, "I can't take your money, Ma'am. You lost too much in groceries. I wouldn't feel right." 

In the end, we traded the spare hot water heater sitting in my garage (my house came with two hot water heaters and no linen closet. That is part of what is being fixed) for his two days of work. He also offered to have his wife bring by some some deer meat from his freezer.