TIC

TIC - This is China.

Wednesday morning about 4am Mark & I woke up to a strange beeping sound in our apartment. I got up and walked around to see if I could figure out what it was. It beeped every few minutes so I tried to follow it and noticed that the electrical box installed above our circuit breaker had red blinking lights. Hmmm.... maybe that was the problem but the sound didn't come from that direction. Since I needed to get up early to get ready for school, I went back to bed. I must have fallen asleep because after a while I didn't hear the beep anymore. However, upon getting up with my alarm clock, I heard the beep again every 2-3 minutes.

After school that day, I met up with Mark and he told me how it turned out. He called our wonderful landlady and she sent a maintenance man. He came early in the morning just as Mark was half-way dressed after his shower and when he was in the middle of fixing his French-pressed coffee. The maintenance man brought his trusted tools - wire cutters and a screwdriver. In about 30 seconds, he confidently knew the problem and cut a wire in the electrical box, and viola, no more beeping. In the process he received a electrical shock, jumped backwards, then flipped the power switch on. Wait -- no power either! He had cut off all the electricity. As Mark finished his coffee in the dark, the maintenance man moved back and forth between the outside hall and the apartment about 8 times until he finally came back with electrical tape and twisted the wires back together. Now we had power and no more beeping.  Success!