The "Still Alive and Kicking!" Story

Forward: The final part of the Roots Market Story will appear tomorrow, hopefully. Read on ..... It was an ordinary day. Having some juice problems, though. Struggling with the 220v electricity on the French side of St. Martin. Arrived 4 days ago and within a few hours I blew all the circuits in the villa. The realtor told me to use the converter that was supplied on the kitchen counter. OK! She left and I plugged my power strip into the converter. Supposed to convert 220v current to 110v current which is what most of you reading this use in your house. As soon as I plugged the power strip into the converter all the lights went out. Finally found the power panel in the villa, opened it, and IT WAS IN FRENCH! Holy S*#t! Now what? I started pushing buttons and moving levers! Finally Carol yelled, "It's on!" Cheers from my end. Then I got the Radio Shack converter, that I brought with me just in case, out of my suitcase. Plugged that into their converter and then plugged the power strip into my converter. Lights remained on! Hurrah!! Plugged the computer into the power cord and added another story to my blog, then turned off the computer. Sunday morning, while Carol was still in bed, I thought I would add another story. Took the computer outside to the table on the patio so I would be inspired by the beach view. After about 10 minutes it died and I saw that the battery was dead. Back inside to plug it into the power cord to finish my story. NO JUICE. Was my computer dead for good? I tried everything. Then it hit me. The cord running from the power strip to my computer, which has many holes in it from our cat, Otis, chewing on it, must be bad. Had to be the answer. I found a pocket knife and cut the bad section out of the cord and attached the two ends together. Had no electrical tape so I used a Bandaid! Tried again and ..... no luck. Computer still would not turn on. Guess my repair job didn't work. Traveled to Philipsburg, capital of the Dutch side of St. Martin, and found a new cord. Hooked it up between the power strip and the computer and ....... STILL DEAD! Called Stephane, one of the realtors and he told me the name of the computer guy they use. Next day made a visit to see him and his cord worked. Must be the new cord I bought. IT STILL DIDN'T WORK. And, I figured my blog junkies were getting impatient. As I was sitting by the computer cursing, Carol said, "Are you sure you didn't ruin the power strip when you plugged it into their converter?" A light came on in my head. Yeah, must have been the answer! She plugged her razor into the power strip and viola! It didn't work. I FRIED my power strip. The reason nothing was working. Another call to the Realtor brought Stephane to the villa. He helped get me straight and I'm in business again. To think I almost went back into Philipsburg and bought another computer. Carol saved the day!! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. Actually 3 extraordinary days!