Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Lessons in Electricity

Let’s start this off by explaining that I’m not a big bread fan. I hate the mess of toasters and all the crumbs that come from them. Several years ago after cleaning up crumbs yet again from someone else’s toast mess, I threw the toaster in the trash. Now the bread lovers in the house are forced to make toast in the counter-top convection oven ,which does double duty as a toaster oven. But toasters came up in a recent conversation with Katie.

We have a small space heater that we use in the bathroom during the winter. The upstairs bathroom is a little drafty and we have one of those gigantic pedestal bath tubs that maintains a temperature somewhere in the range of a frozen side of beef. The only way to take a bath without suffering hypothermia is to pre-heat the bathroom.

I’m very careful about letting the girls be in there with the heater plugged in. It’s far enough away that there isn’t a danger of it even reaching the tub but kids tend to splash. Katie was in the bath tub when I decided that I better make sure she was clear about water not getting anywhere near the space heater.

Me- “Ok, Katie, you need to be really careful. The heater is plugged in and we can’t have any water near it. No splashing. All the water has to stay in the tub. Ok?”

Katie- “Why?”

Me- “Because the heater is plugged in and it would be really bad. You could get hurt.”

Katie- “How?”

Me- “The heater is electrical. That means there is electricity in it. Water does not go with electricity. Ever.”

Katie- “Why? What would happen?”

Me- “You could get zapped. It could really hurt you.”

Katie- “But how?”

Me- “Ok, for example, if someone was taking a bath and a toaster that was plugged in fell into the water, it would kill them.”

Katie- “But we don’t even have a toaster.”

Me- “And that is exactly why. They’re dangerous.”

3 comments:

Stacie said...

I'm not a fan of toasters or "toaster leavins'" <-- toaster leavins' came from Married with Children.

Good explanation to Katie, lol.

Jack said...

We tossed our toaster and bought a toaster oven. All we ever did with the toaster oven was make toast, and it did not do that well. Next move, we tossed our toaster oven and bought a toaster. Now we hardly ever eat toast. I am now going to talk to my court-appointed psychiatrist . . . who tells me not to have a toaster in the bathroom.

Anonymous said...

You forgot to say, "Because I said so."