Okay, something in the universe is preventing us from using our dryer. I swear it must be the fates conspiring to keep that dryer from ever being turned on, and possible destroying two-thirds of the universe.

After we got our new dryer delivered, the delivery guy said, ooh, looks like the socket's wrong, we can't plug the dryer in. But he suggested going to Home Depot and just getting the correct socket and replacing it ourselves.

So we went and got the socket and the next day, Whateley tried to install it. He made sure to turn off all the circuits that said "Washer" and "Dryer" though oddly enough, there was no "Main" breaker for us to flip. But we figured, that was enough. We even bought a gadget to measure volts or amps or whatever the heck it was, and Whateley poked those prong everywhere on that socket and the wiring and there was no juice... or so we thought.

Cut to ten minutes later, I see a bright flash and loud bang... and then Whateley saying in a alarmed tone, "Whoa."

Apparently, as he was trying to pry the plug off its wires, his screwdriver came into contact with one wire and then the other. There was still some juice in those wires, it seems, and when the circuit connected... and let's just say it left a burn mark... on the frickin' screwdriver! It burned in between where the two wires touched the screwdriver shaft. That's metal, we're talking about here.

Anyway, since we didn't want Whateley accidentally dying by having 220 volts (and however many amps) shot through his body, we decided to call an electrician to handle replacing the plug.

... Ay ya ya ya yaaaaa....

How hard is it to get an electrician to come to your house? Apparently pretty difficult.

Since this happened Tuesday night, we stayed up until Wednesday morning to call electricians to see if they can come that day. Many were not available, but I got one that was fairly close by, who, when asked if he could come by at 4 pm, said he would. Now, maybe I should've gotten the clue when he didn't ask for my name or a phone number he could reach me by. But 4 pm came and went, and by the time 6:30 rolled around, we figured he was not going to show. I left at least two messages on his machine, and I haven't heard from him since. Yeah, never gonna call him again.

So I then called a rather big company to schedule an electrician, even if it was the next day. Which I did. I even called out sick at work so I could be there.

The window was from 5 to 8 pm. I was dead tired and fell asleep at our house, expecting my cell phone to ring to wake me up. Come 7:30, I'm awake and no calls, and I'm paranoid thinking they came, knocked on the door, I didn't wake up, and they left. So I called the company to see what was going on.

The lady on the phone was very nice, told me I was still on the list, and put me on hold while we found out where the guy was. Ten minutes later, she come back on, apologizes profusely, and says they had me under "air conditioning" instead of "electrical" work, and they didn't have anyone qualified to come do our work that day.

Let me just say... I was not happy.

She re-scheduled me for tomorrow morning, but I don't think she realizes what a hassle that's going to be. For three days now, we've had to stay up at least two hours past bedtime and/or wake up three hours early to handle getting people to our house to work on it. I specifically took the day off so I could meet this electrician for what would most likely be a five-minute job.

And yet... we couldn't get this done and over with, we're going to have to get up four-and-a-half-hours earlier than usual, just to meet up with an electrician for a five-minute job.

This world hates shift-workers. Especially those that work swing or nights. I know that company didn't do it on purpose, and mistakes happen, but their little mistake is going to make an already sleep-deprived, stressful week even worse. And they can offer to make it as easy on us as possible but the only way they're going to do that is if they can send someone at 4 o'clock in the morning, and no company would ever do that.

And I'm absolutely sick of people thinking we're lazy because we sleep during the day due to our work schedule. We haven't been able to sleep more than five hours straight every night for the past three days! Let's see if you can function on that kind of sleep! What, you think we should conform to your "non-lazy" schedule and sleep only three hours each night so we can be up by 8 am?