Thursday, December 04, 2014

not dead

I did something revolutionary and switched on my bed's electric heating pad last night, praying that it wouldn't shock me to death or start sparking and end up engulfing me in flames. I survived the night, which seems to mean that, despite the yeogwan ajeossi's having poked massive holes in the heating pad with his industrial-sized safety pins, no wires were damaged enough to cause problems. Of course, this isn't proof that the heating pad is actually safe to use, but my having survived one night with the pad activated will henceforth count as one datum in a slowly accumulating inductive case in favor of the pad's continued use. If I survive a second night, the case will be even stronger. If I make it through a week, it'll likely be safe to declare the pad safe.

I do need to learn how to adjust the pad to the right temperature, though. Last night, I was toasty warm, but was perhaps a bit too toasty, as my legs got fairly sweaty wherever they made contact with the pad. Water and electricity don't mix, my ever-paranoid brother David warned via text.* But I don't think that ought to be a problem: the holes in the heating pad's rubberized surface are along its outer edge, not in the middle, where my legs are. So things ought to be fine. Still, for comfort's sake, I'm going to try dialing the heat down a notch or two tonight, and we'll see how that works out for me.

Suffice it to say, I survived. And that's always something, because in this unpredictable world, you never know when you're gonna go.



*David actually wrote, "Liquid mixes with electricity and BOOM." Which is a tad dramatic.


_

3 comments:

Charles said...

Glad to hear you're still alive. Do you otherwise not have heating in your room, though?

Kevin Kim said...

Correct: no ondol, and no central heating. The building has natural insulating properties, but the wall that has the wall-mounted air conditioner in it radiates a substantial amount of cold. Cocooning up in my blankets, with that heating pad chugging away, seems to be the best way to get through this winter. It's a bit like camping, really.

Charles said...

Oh, wow, no ondol? That sucks.

Stay warm, man. It's gonna be ball-shatteringly cold tomorrow.