A 50/50 gamble on a hot night

There are two electrical outlets in the corner of my room. In the vicinity of that same corner, there are four electrical appliances—my toothbrush charger, my phone charger, a floor fan, and a lamp.

It was hot last night, so I had the fan blowing and the lamp turned on. I was lying in bed, texting my friends, telling them goodnight because I was about to go to bed, when I realized that my phone battery was on 1%.

I got up and went over to the outlets, but my phone charger was unplugged, lying in a coil on the carpet. I thought, no problem, I’ll just plug it in. So I bent down, picked up the end with the electrical plug, and reached for the outlet, which is when I realized: the fan and the lamp were already plugged in. There weren’t any open outlets.

Then I had a decision to make: unplug the fan or unplug the lamp. I wanted to keep the fan plugged in because it was hot. And I figured I was about to go to bed anyway, so I didn’t need the light. I decided to unplug the lamp.

But the two cords plugged into the wall, the one for the fan and the one for the lamp, were identical. Usually, I would have just picked up one of the cords and followed it to find out which appliance it was attached to. But, for some reason, I didn’t have any patience last night.

I pointed my finger at the top outlet to start, then sang silently to myself, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” I ended up back on the top outlet. So I reached out, grabbed the top cord, and pulled it out of the wall. And the light went out.

I fumbled on the ground for my phone charger, plugged it into the wall, plugged the other end into my phone, set my phone on the desk to charge overnight, and then stumbled blindly back to bed.