Lexi, Unplugged

(January 29, 2003)

"My electric bill is $36.61," I told Hub. I was at my desk paying bills, he was stretched out on the couch in front of Conan O'Brien. He comes over with his laptop sometimes, "to work."

"That's IT? I guess there's one advantage to not having any outlets."

Heh. It's true. This place, though the landlord said it had just been brought up to code, is sadly lacking electrical outlets. There are, inexplicably, about ten in the tiny compartment of a kitchen. But only two in the living room. The dining room...zero. Zero outlets. I have this lamp in there, on a dresser I'd re-finished, and it's plugged in via an extension cord that runs around the corner to the kitchen.

The bedroom has one outlet.

"ONE?," Hub had yelled, back when I was first moving in. Hub's first degree, undergrad, was in Electrical Engineering, from Lehigh. Telling him there's only one outlet in my bedroom is like going up to a vegan with a half-eaten chicken leg and going, "Check it out, I got a vein in that bite."

"One outlet in a BEDroom," he'd scoffed. "That's like...a lamp and a vibrator, that's IT."

Totally not true. The vibrators run on batteries.