Is there a DIY Anonymous meeting I could attend?

One of the first sentences my parents recall me saying was "girl do by self". This has followed me my entire life, and with good reason. I am CONVINCED that with the right tools and a little work I can fix, install, remove, repaint, unwallpaper, adjust or wire ANYTHING. Sometimes I am right about this.

When we first moved into our rental house I was anxious to get the washer and dryer up and going because, well, having 2 kids and a husband means that a day without one of those appliances running turns the pile of laundry into a Mt. Fuji that cannot be scaled. I had the movers back the dryer close to its spot and I started to plug it in, when I noticed that the socket would only handle a three-prong plug and I *gasp* have a dryer with a four-prong plug.

Now, you might think this would completely undo me and send me crying to my room, but being the independent little pain-in-the-@ss that I am, I actually HAVE a three-prong plug that, for some reason, I had saved for several years. All I needed to do was switch out the plugs and voila! I could begin doing laundry again! I started unscrewing the old plug from the back of the dryer, but then stopped and decided to try the spare plug in the socket to make sure it fit.

***NOTE - do not try this at home, Internet***

Without thinking twice about it, I stuck that three-prong plug into the socket and !!FLASH!!CRACK!!Holy Sh*t!!! The other end touched the front of my shirt and burned a hole in it, along with flipping several breakers in the fuse box. My landlord Brian, who is a good friend, had just walked in the door and saw the whole thing. As if speaking to a Cuban hijacker holding a gun and demanding to be taken to the US, he calmly told me to put down the plug and step away from the dryer. I immediately complied. He sent an electrician over to repair the damage and fix the dryer.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I decided I wanted to turn on the sprinkler system because the hydrangeas in the backyard were looking sad and droopy. I found the control box for the system a few weeks ago, but when I opened it discovered it had been totally colonized by nasty little black ants that started crawling up my legs and biting me.

I left the cover off the box and a few days later after a heavy rain noticed the ants had packed up and moved house to a location less prone to flooding. SO, I tried to turn the system on yesterday. Eh - it was not a huge success, some of the sprinkler heads don't work, others just dribble, so I turned it back off.

EXCEPT, the front sprinklers WOULDN'T TURN OFF. No matter how hard I turned the handle, they kept on spraying. I had to flip the breaker in the afore-mentioned fuse box to turn off the well pump. FABULOUS, I think, I'm going to have to call Brian and admit to something else I tried to do.

He's sending over a plumber today.

Have a learned my lesson? OF COURSE NOT!