Chapter 9 - A Life Unplanned

I want to give you another peek at A Life Unplanned.  I have had many tell me you need a box of tissues to read this novel. While there is definitely some sadness to the story, there are also a lot of funny incidents that took place during Kate's life, all true, nothing exaggerated. Here is a sampling of the mind of Kate!  Enjoy and, as always, thanks so much for hanging out.

~~ CHAPTER 9 ~~

Kate could sometimes be prone to exaggeration or to worry about silly things that did not require any worry.   It’s hard to say if that came from living alone for so long or her tendency to read only half an article, thus thinking she had all the information she needed, such as reading that electricity leaks out of a socket if you don’t put a dead light bulb in there until you can replace it with a live one, even though the article would go on to say that it doesn’t happen.  James Thurber is quoted as saying, “She came naturally by her confused and groundless fears, for her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.” He was speaking of his own mother and perhaps that is where Kate got the notion about the empty sockets.

She always had a thing about electricity, so it would be a little ironic that she would die by a gas stove, not electric.  It was interesting that she would insist that the TV had to be unplugged during a storm or that the washer could not run while she was out of the house (she never had a dryer, probably much to her delight—that much less electricity use), but when asked why then was it okay to let the refrigerator run when home alone or the stove left plugged in during same storm, well, that was different.  To this day, I don’t know what the difference was, but to her mind there was a difference.

One time, she bravely chose to use a power strip, which in itself was quite remarkable, but one day the little light on the end of the strip was blinking, blinking very fast.  She stared at that light for 30 minutes, no exaggeration, trying to decide if she should attempt to turn off the strip or call 911.  Even though she might have been prone to exaggeration, she actually was not prone to panic, so she called her son-in-law instead.

“Andy, you have to promise not to laugh,” when he answered the phone.

“Now, Kate, you know that is a promise I can’t make,” he laughed back.  “What do you need?” 

She explained the situation and that staring at the plug did not help to stop the blinking.

“The blinking does not mean a thing, Kate.  Sometimes the light blinks, sometimes it goes off completely and sometimes it stays lit.  In any event, it’s fine, so don’t worry about it.  If you turn it off, the plug won’t explode.” 

“Are you sure nothing will happen when I turn it off?” 

“I promise I would not tease you about that.  If you want me to come over to take a look at it, you know I will,” he said as he continued to giggle.

“No, it’s fine.”  And Kate started to laugh, too.  “You know how I am with electricity.”

“Really?”  Andy said, with a big smile on his face. 

“Oh, you,” she replied.  “Okay, thanks, and tell Jackie I said hello.” 

“Will do, bye.”  And she could still hear him laughing as he hung up, but she knew it was going to be okay, even though it still bothered her just a little that that darn light would not stop blinking at her. 

There was the time when I was little when I plugged in the Christmas tree lights, and a huge spark flew out of the outlet, the outlet turned black, and the tree lights went out in a flash.  That was kind of scary, so it always surprised me that Mom would allow lights on a tree after that, but she never did allow me to plug them in again.  I guess I was full of too much electricity myself! 

Maybe it was not so much the electricity, but just the thing about explosions.  There was another call to Andy, this time as she was vacuuming the living room, or at least she wanted to vacuum, but there was danger lurking in the carpet.  As she was changing the battery in her hearing aid, it slipped out of her hand and onto the carpet.  When you drop a tiny battery into shag carpeting that is just about the same color, it’s pretty much lost forever, no matter how long you search on your hands and knees. 

So the call to Andy was a must.  He is an audiologist, after all, and knows just a little bit about hearing aids and their batteries. 

“Andy, you have to promise not to laugh.” 

“Where have I heard that before?” as Andy of course started to laugh. 

“Okay, I lost a hearing aid battery in the carpet, and I’m trying to vacuum, but I’m worried if I vacuum up the battery, it will explode,” she explained.

“Kate, don’t even hang up the phone.  Get out of your house now! Before it’s too late!” 

Kate started to laugh, but noted that the battery package did state if the battery is thrown into a fire, it will explode. 

“Well, first of all, does your vacuum typically catch on fire when you use it?” Andy asked in all “seriousness.” 

“No, of course not, but I just thought if the battery was sucked up into the bag, it  might explode just from being near the motor, which is a little hot, isn’t it?” she explained. “Okay, this is sounding silly even to me now that I say it out loud,” she said with a giggle.  “But I still want to know it won’t hurt anything if it gets vacuumed up. I’ll just feel better knowing for sure.” 

“The most that would happen to any battery is that it would just pop, but not actually explode. So even if that were to happen, you probably would not even hear the pop, especially if you were not wearing your hearing aids,” said Andy.  “Go vacuum, Kate. Your house is safe.” 

Yeah, she could worry or exaggerate about the silliest of things, but there was one thing she never exaggerated about.  She never thought of herself as being divorced, which is why she would never take off her wedding ring right up to the day she died, when it almost was lost because of what happened that horrible day.