Mr. Know-It-All

摘要

One saturday morning, I received a call from a man who said his bedroom lights flickered occasionally. The flickering was of particular concern because that lighting circuit also fed the machine that protected the caller's wife, who had sleep apnea.rnHe was pretty brave and handy, so I decided to see if we could handle it over the phone. He knew which circuit breaker was responsible, so I invited him to sniff his panel for untoward smells and to feel for excessive warmth. All fine. He went ahead and removed the panel cover. He mentioned the breaker was "wiggly" compared to the others. I suggested that, if he really were comfortable doing so, he turn the breaker off and push on its case to make sure it was fully seated on the bus and even, since he had chosen to remove the panel cover, wiggle the wire to see whether its termination was loose.