See You In Hell, Sparky

I don't know a whole bunch about electricity. My friend Chris has said that he "knows two things about electricity - one, it's invisible, and two, it can kill you." Tru dat, tru dat, and right there is reason enough to just not mess with the wiring in your walls. Still, it has, on the surface, an inviting simplicity: black-gold, and label the whites when they run to a switch. Maybe try to shy away from it when you're riding the horse, but on a lazy Saturday? C'mon.

Well, I got into it a little bit today, and I want to know: was there some sort of unspoken competition back in the day to see which electrician could shove the most fucking wires into a single box? Is there some legend still floating around about Sparky McWattsvolt capping 8 #12 hots together with the fuse in place into a 3" diameter box? Is there some corner of a retirement home somewhere where they cackle on about the poor sunovabitch who has to try to unbraid that spaghetti bowl someday?

You know, I'm no big city electrician, but fuck you, Sparky. It's a fucking attic. It's not like those boxes are getting in the way. It's okay to use a 4" square box for only 3 wires. I don't want to hear your shit about "we didn't have that back then ..." and "there was a war on! Steel was precious!". Jesus. I'm not even going to start about how your tendency to wire one outlet in the master bedroom on the same circuit as the washing machine 200 feet away is so obviously oedipal that it makes a first year psych major puke.

Listen up, Sparky. I know you didn't have ground back then. But you'll be in it soon, if you're not already. And I'll dance on that little piece of land. I won't be surprised, though, knowing your work, if your gravestone is in a whole different cemetery than your body.

Bastard.