Electric Boogaloo
I swear this is a true story.
The other morning I took John Henry for a walk and for reasons not really pertinent to this story we ended up going north instead of south as we usually do. On the next block north three of my neighbors have a fairly elaborate Christmas light display--it's really kind of nice, not so much lights in trees but more things that light up (wire trees and penguins and polar bears).
So, anyway, it's 5:30 in the morning and none of the Christmas lights are on and at the first house John Henry stops and starts peeing on one of those little wire Christmas trees with lights. And as he pees the lights on this Christmas tree start to light up. And the more he pees the brighter they get. No other lights in this yard are on. Only the lights on the tree John Henry is peeing on. I'm afraid to pull him away because I'm thinking--holy crap if it's not electrocuting him now maybe it will if I yank him out of there. So I just keep staring and the lights keep lighting and he gradually stops peeing and the lights go out again.
And then we finished our walk and came home. But I so wish I had a picture.
Comments
That's just weird!!!
Why did they light up?
(and you're putting this into a story, aren't you?)
Posted by: SarahP | December 16, 2006 05:29 PM
I have no idea why! Because nothing else was on.
I am very tempted to call up someone in the EE dept and ask them....
Posted by: debco | December 16, 2006 06:28 PM
This story told to the Prineii at breakfast this morning. John's conclusion. The lights were, in fact, plugged in, but there was a 'break' in the line and the pee completed the circuit.
Hmmmm....
Posted by: SarahP | December 18, 2006 12:42 PM
Wow.
That would have been something to see, all right.
(Glad nobody got electrocuted.)
Posted by: Cath | December 18, 2006 04:48 PM
And now I'm having this vision of all the neighborhood dogs stopping to pee in the same place. .. .
Posted by: Cath | December 18, 2006 04:49 PM
I'm sure John's conclusion is right (and yet, I am raising an objection, go figure). When I looked a the lighting setup in daylight the tree that John Henry peed on is, like the fifth thing in the light chain so it would seem to me that something else in the whole chain ought to also light up.
It's clear that we need to run this important experiment again. Perhaps with more controls.
Posted by: debco | December 18, 2006 08:28 PM
It's clear that we need to run this important experiment again. Perhaps with more controls.
Oh, so you're going to pee on it next?
I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I'll go comment on the substantive writing post now!!
Posted by: SarahP | December 19, 2006 08:49 PM
You forget I am in a university town.
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be that hard to find someone to come pee on Christmas lights :-)
Posted by: debco | December 20, 2006 07:52 PM