Well, son of a (bleep)

One of the fuses in our house blew, taking out the power to two rooms of the house and - most importantly - the water pump. No big deal, right? Just replace it, and there you go. So (after figuring out which fuse had blown) I did just that.

It glowed bright orange, and while I was trying to figure out what was going on, it popped. As those of you who have the luxury of ten seconds of thought uninterrupted by people screaming in the background probably already figured, the line is screwed up somewhere. With what limited electrical knowledge I possess, I went under the assumption that there was something shorting the line.

I checked everywhere and unplugged everything. This resulted in a lot of screaming - namely because I had to order a teenager to unlock her room (which she'd barricaded herself inside of for some reason, despite the fact that the room now had no power), but eventually I got it taken care of, and went to try the new fuse. At first, I tried a fuse with twice the amperage - no, I don't know enough about electrician work to know whether that's a bright idea, but I wanted to see if it would work at all. It didn't, but at least it didn't explode. I tried to use the fuse with the proper amperage in its place, and it started glowing brightly, so I removed it before it could explode like the last one did. (We only have so many fuses, and blowing them all out seemed like a particularly bad idea.)

Supposedly (according to my mother-in-law, the homeowner), it's probably the water pump -- it's been 'making noises' lately, or whathaveyou. I have no idea about that, but the relevant fact is that the water system of our house is now nonfunctional, and the bedroom of two of the kids now has no power. They've called a plumber to check the pump tomorrow, since chances are it's what's screwed up here, so hopefully, it's something that's fixable.

Meanwhile, the storm seems to have started up again, so I have no idea whether the rest of the house's power system will go out. I've got a flashlight handy just in case.

If it's not one thing it's another, y'know?