So, it's currently 4:45am, and I haven't gone to bed yet, because I'm waiting for Lowe's to open....
The backstory:
A week or so ago, my adorable but insolent foster bunnies chewed through the power cord on my router AND my air bed, which I am sleeping on because the old mattress I had been sleeping on was causing me no end of back problems. At first, I resigned myself to just buying new power cords and a new air bed (It was only $40 in the first place, so replacing it is annoying but not prohibitive.) But then I thought to myself, "If only there were a simple way I could fix these things so I wouldn't have to replace them. Maybe I should ask the Internet Machine." And, indeed, the Internet Machine introduced me to the wonderful world of soldering. After watching a few online tutorials, I decided to give it a shot, so I went to Lowe's and bought a cheap, "light-duty" soldering iron, on the theory that I basically was going to solder 2 things, and that seemed pretty light-duty to me. First, I tried soldering the router cable. It wasn't easy, because the wires were really small, and my hands are really big, so it got hard to manipulate the wires together so I could solder them. It went okay for my first attempt at soldering--there were unattractive little globs of metal everywhere, which were covered by haphazardly-placed electrical tape, but the wires got successfully reconnected, and when I plugged it in, everything worked and didn't explode, which was basically my main goal when I started.
The bed, theoretically, was going to be even easier to fix. Or at least it was not going to involve any soldering. I just needed to cut off the chewed parts of the cord, and stick a new plug on the end of it. Except when I went to try that, I realized the replacement plug I had bought was non-polarized, and the air bed power cord WAS polarized, and the Internet Machine said to definitely use a polarized replacement plug for a polarized cord. So, I figure, the bed is still fully inflated and comfortable to sleep on, so I can wait until the next time I get around to Lowe's to fix it. But over time, the bed decided to slowly deflate, without my permission, and the past couple nights I was starting to get the back pain again because the bed wasn't supporting me enough. So, I headed out to Lowe's today (which is now yesterday) to pick up a polarized replacement plug. Except, it turns out, Lowe's doesn't HAVE any polarized replacement plugs. They have basically every other kind of plug that has ever been manufactured in the history of the universe. They have, I'm pretty sure, plugs that only work with appliances used by isolated tribes deep in the Amazon rain forest. But no polarized replacement plugs, because why would anyone possibly want the type of plug that's used in like 97% of all the things that gets plugged in these days?
However, I am not discouraged, because I know I can still work around the problem by soldering the old cord back together. With my mad soldering skillz. So, I fully deflate the bed and drag it into my computer room so I can work on the cord. This cord is a lot bigger, so it's much easier to work with. I cut out the bad parts and strip the wires like a boss, and I am ready to solder. Then I put the batteries in the soldering iron ("light-duty") and turn it on, and away we....hmmmm, this seems to be taking its time heating up. Oh, wait, okay, there we go, it melted a little bit of solder, and... well, now it's not melting it anymore. Hmmm. Maybe I'll let it rest for a minute then try it again... Okay, it's rested, so now it should be fine, right? Okay, I can feel that it's getting hotter, but it still isn't melting this solder. Maybe I just need to--WHY AREN'T YOU WORKING, YOU SON OF A BITCH?!?!?!?!?!?!
So, that's pretty much where I am now. Some people (normal, rational, non-insane people) would have just slept on the couch and worried about it when they woke up, but not me. Noooooo. I'm too annoyed to sleep. And it's now only 25 more minutes until Lowe's opens. I plan to go there, see if I can get a refund for this piece of crap soldering iron, and then purchase a soldering GUN, which is like a soldering iron, but presumably far more dangerous. Because the only thing that stops a bad guy with a soldering gun is a good guy with a soldering gun. And since very few good guys are walking around with soldering guns, I can be a bad guy and solder every god damn person who gets in my way....
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