Crazy Clocks and Funny Fans

Some of you have heard the story of my crazy clock when I was teaching at Greene County High. It had a mind of its own. From day one, it just never worked. My students kept asking me why I didn't get a new clock, but I don't like students staring at the clock the whole period, so I just ignored them. I guess I had working there about a month when one day after school we had a storm. As the lightning began to strike I began to hear a buzzing noise. I looked up to see the second hand of my clock moving. "Strange!" you exclaim. Well, I've only just begun... As I continued to watch the clock's miraculous return to life, the second hand paused for a moment and began to run backwards. Yes, that's correct, counter-clockwise. I soon left with the clock still moving about 10 seconds forward and then 30 seconds backwards, and when I returned the next day, the clock had once again stopped, but the time had changed from an eternal 5:40 to 5:25. Hmmm...

This pattern kept up during the 2 years I worked in Georgia. My students would notice the change in the clock from time to time, but they didn't believe me when I told them that the clock moved backwards. Finally, about 3 months before I left, I was teaching my afternoon AlgebraII class when a storm rolled in. I heard the familiar buzzing sound and told my students to watch the clock. They all sat surprised as the watched the second hand begin to move forward. Then I told them to keep watching, and sure enough within a couple of more seconds, the second hand began to move backwards. They totally freaked out. "That's not normal, Ms. Shaver," they shouted. "Your clock is just crazy!"

Well, I guess I must have some sort of electrical field or charge about me that encourages such strange phenomena because a couple of days ago during the middle of my Geometry class, my ceiling fan just turned itself on. I had not touched the switch since September and was standing on the opposite side of the room when it happened. Not only did it start turning, but it started turning at tornado speed, so I ran over to the rheostat and began twisting it this way and that, but to no avail. The fan would not turn off or even slow down. A couple of seconds later, my students started saying, "Uh, Ms. Shaver, it's smoking!" Sure enough there was smoke coming from the switch. So, I ran out in the hall and began to switch off breakers until my students yelled and told me I had found the right one.

Later that day, I called our handy-man who we couldn't do without. He came and found that there had been a short in the wiring. In fact, inside the switch was all melted together. At least I found out the cause of this strange event.