Carol’s Column

Blame it all on Schuyler

IT WAS Schuyler S Wheeler's fault. There's no doubt about it.

Had it not been for Schuyler, the following sequence of horrifying events would never have happened.

It all started last Monday evening. They say it was the coldest night of the year.

It's true.

You know it's cold when you find the kids skating in the bath tub, the goldfish frozen in the bowl and Liquorice-the-labrador stuck to the side walk.

It was also the night we ran out of anthracite which meant we had to use the cumbersome fan-heater constructed at the turn of the century or thereabout, and bequeathed to my husband by his late Aunt Fanny.

From Aunt Fanny, we also inherited a long-expired bear skin rug with yellow teeth and missing right eye, a brick doorstop covered in scuffed crimson velvet and a decorated chamber pot without a handle to use as a receptacle for whatever.

I plugged the heater into the socket and there was a flash of white light followed by spectacular stars and crimson flames.

And then there was darkness.

I groped my way to the lounge, where my husband, watching TV, hadn't noticed there was anything amiss.

"Hey, we've got no electricity," I shouted into his comatose ear. "Can't you see the TV's not working?"

"I hadn't noticed," he murmured.

I opened the fuse box by the light of the silvery moon because we were out of matches.

It seemed that the fuse box had melted.

As quick as a flash I phoned the municipality emergency service who were on the scene before you could say "Jack Frost".

"You got a problem, hey?" he said when I answered the door.

Before I could explain the sad saga of Aunt Fanny's fan, he'd disappeared.

I caught him up pole 12 at the bottom of the driveway.

"Can't see any problem here, hey," he yelled.

No, it's inside.

"Why didn't you say so lady? Don't you know an inside job needs a private electrician?"

It isn't easy to find an electrician in the dark. I phoned Pete, who said phone Ted who said phone Fred who said phone Nic.

Who came and was a little taken aback when I flung my arms around him.

"Aren't you over-reacting?" asked my husband.

Nic was superb. Ten minutes of fiddling in the fuse box and he was done.

It was a miracle. Once again we had light.

On Tuesday morning the toaster choked on the wholewheat bread and the washing machine rejected the rugby sock intake, flashed several times and died.

I phoned Nic, who came immediately — an angel of mercy playing his pliers like a harp.

He made his diagnosis, removed the back, parted the wires and retrieved the lint-catching box from the bowels of the machine. Wherein he discovered 73 buttons, four magnets, several coins of different descent, 11 chewed chewing gum sticks, one broken pencil stub, seven birthday invitations, a piece of biltong and the toe-end of a sock.

From the overflow pipe, he removed the sleeve of a rugby jersey.

Of course, this took a while, so I made him breakfast — two fried eggs sunnyside up, fried bread because the toaster was still indisposed, and a pot of coffee. At 11am he had tea and home-baked cheese muffins, and for lunch I whipped up a little tuna salad.

On Wednesday I found the tumble-drier dancing in the kitchen which was fine until it collided with the stove and smashed the high-pressure, special-glaze frontage.

This was a more complicated repair and it took the entire day — during which time he consumed copious amounts of spaghetti bolognaise. I also discovered he preferred white wine to red — red making him feel sluggish he said.

On Thursday, I found myself making the kid's sandwiches knee-deep in water, chops, mince, chuck and chicken livers.

A slight problem with the deepfreeze had caused a minor flood. Fortunately Nic was there anyway. He'd popped in for breakfast on the way to work.

Friday was a quiet day. Other than the coffee grinder, the food mixer and the TV, everything worked well.

Saturday was bad. My husband's electric toothbrush ran out of power and in the afternoon, in between the rugby and the riots, the main fuse box blew once more.

Over dinner, Nic explained the situation.

"You can blame it all on Schuyler S Wheeler," he said. "He invented the fan heater and that's causing all the problems.

"Aunt Fanny's heater (for of course he knew the story), is defective — and whenever you plug it in - it blows a fuse and causes other highly interesting and complicated side diversions."

"In fact," he added, "I have a suggestion to make. It's a serious suggestion, not one that can be taken lightly, and I want you both to give it a lot of thought.

He paused: "I feel you should have your house rewired. It will cost a mere R4 000."

After much thought, we decided to follow his advice.

Of course, Nic moved in. It was so much more convenient.

Only yesterday, we decided to sell the house in order to pay Nic.

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