I was posting this on twitter since I saw something that reminded me of it, but twitter's format is a bit terrible for longer stories and who the hell is going to link all that shit on a forum.
So this may entertain a few of you. I'm copying this exactly as I
posted on twitter because I'm not rewriting bits to make it more personal >:V we know who we is to each other. I'm 90% sure I've mentioned this to serial before. I'd forgotten it happened until I saw some picture online. This was... Spring 2013 iirc. Late April-ish, there was still snow on the ground.
I can't find a photo of it, but at my old house, we had a large garage. 30x30' (2' larger than our house), had a woodstove, a second level/attic, could fit a car in one side and a large truck/half a semi in the other side. there was a work bench in the back right corner with a tv, a mini fridge, a CB radio, a stereo system that had huge speakers all over the garage. Both walls on either side had shelving that extended from the back of the garage to the front doors. Those shelves were FILLED with everything imaginable. You never had to go to an auto parts store, an electronics store, a lumber yard. We had all of it.
This was where my dad spent 90% of his time. He put a ton of work into this garage. He was disabled and didn't like being in enclosed areas/the house considering how much time he'd spent in the hospital after an injury years and years ago (and he loved the outdoors anyway). He put everything into this place. I'm surprised it didn't have a damn bed (though sometimes he'd fall asleep in a wheelchair while watching tv).
Above his work bench in the back right corner was a fluorescent light fixture, the kind with the two long tube lights. It was plugged into a power strip that he had fixed to the wall, and to turn it off you would turn off the power strip. Simple solution, easy lighting, didn't need to have the huge ceiling lights on when you were just hanging out in the corner watching TV.
A couple years after Dad died, some squirrels moved into the garage attic. They were a pain in the ass and we were trapping/relocating/etc. those bastards to get them out of the place. One night, I'm using a miter saw and the lights all flicker. Then the lights all go off, the saw dies, and there is no power in the garage. We had no power in the garage for almost two years - we had an electrician come, everyone was confused, no solutions. We managed to get some power to the breaker on the front left corner of the garage, completely opposite that workbench, and one outlet worked. We figured that was enough while we figured out how to bring power back to everything else (we ended up digging a new line to the garage, fixed it, but that was years later).
So one outlet works in the garage. The outlet directly next to the breaker. The fluorescent light in the back right corner wouldn't work if you plugged it into the wall, wouldn't work if you plugged it into the power strip into the wall. So we just left it as is, plugged into that power strip into the wall where it didn't work. Whatever.
Spring rolls around and my mother and I are looking for something in the garage. Who knows what, doesn't matter. On the front right side of the garage, attached to a shelving unit, is a different power strip. It's not plugged into something, nothing is plugged into it. While I'm talking with mum, I'm fooling around with the cord of this empty power strip, and I plug it into itself.
The fluorescent light in the back right corner of the garage, 20' away from this completely empty powerstrip, turns on.
I unplug the empty powerstrip. The light turns off. I plug it back in. The light turns on.
We leave the garage.
We invite electrician friend over to the garage. We plug the empty powerstrip into itself. It turns on. We unplug the empty powerstrip from itself. It turns back off.
We leave the garage.
I wish I could say we have a clear ending to this. Once we dug a new line to the garage, it never happened again. The empty power strip was no longer magic, the light turned on when you actually wanted it on, we had it checked out by multiple electricians and nothing appeared wrong or happened again.
Just.
Fucking magic power strips.
And we had actual witnesses.
Wish I'd thought to get video of it doing that at the time, but we were more concerned with being nowhere near that garage ever while the thing was doing the thing and a video was the last thing on our minds.
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