Our lives basically revolve around timers. At least two or three times a day I ask my Apple Watch to set a timer for me. My Christmas trees are on timers. My outdoor holiday lights are on timers. Our porch light, our yard light, and our garage lights…all on timers.

Except that the timer for our garage lights went kaput a few months ago. Somewhere towards the end of summer, in fact. When we went to AZ for those few weeks last month, I just turned on the outdoor garage lights and left them on 24/7.

But as our move to AZ for the winter creeps closer, I began suggesting, moving to nagging, finally peaking at begging Bill to address the problem. So one day last week, he took apart the timer and said, “Yep, we need a new timer.”

He gave it the ol’ college try at fixing it himself, but it cut into his boxing time and he agreed to let me call an electrician. The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was that the breaker switch for that outlet was – as Bill called it – loosy goosy.

So I called an electrician and told him we had a breaker switch that was loosy goosy. He sighed, likely thinking why didn’t I become a plumber like my dad suggested. But he also agreed to come take a look THAT VERY AFTERNOON. He was my third try; the others couldn’t come for days.

Bill wasn’t home when the electrician arrived, so it was me who walked him over to our breaker box. He opened it up, looked in, was quiet for a few beats, and then said, “Oh my.” Or something like that.

I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say our house is apparently about ready to blow. Like any minute now. Maybe before you read this blog post.

Or maybe the electrician just needs some moola to pay his Christmas bills. But seriously, dare we take the chance? After all, he did strongly suggest we not make toast and coffee at the same time.

Bill arrived home about then, and we both agreed we weren’t willing to chance an explosion rivaling the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius…..

So this Wednesday, we will be forking out thousands of dollars to pay for a new breaker box and all accompanying accoutrements. At least we don’t have to pay an expediting fee to keep our permits from being held up for months like we would if we lived in Chicago. There’s a bright side to everything.

As I have noted before, when you own your home, there’s always something. And when you are lucky enough to own two homes, there’s always something times two.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go make myself a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. Once in a while, you’ve got to throw caution to the wind.

Kaboom.