This morning, in London, I decided to recharge my electric toothbrush. I brought it in honor of my recent dentist appointment and, to uphold my promise, I wanted to recharge it to keep my teeth all clean and extra shiny.
The outlet near the desk in our hotel room is a complicated contraption. There are five plugs, each with a different arrangement of holes and, apparently, voltages. One of the plugs had two converters stuck into it (one probably to convert the plug shape to France or somewhere because the other one probably converted a French plug to an American one) and was also the plug where my cell phone recharger had been plugged in. I used that one, figuring--in my jet-lagged mind--that it would be compatible with my electric toothbrush recharger as well.
I plugged it in and began rummaging around in my suitcase. About a minute later, we heard a loud pop, like a fire-popper had just imploded near the desk. I looked around, shocked. There were slender streams of smoke circling around the desk as well. My dad came rushing in and--lo and behold--quickly removed the charger from the wall. Genius in residence (I) had ruined my toothbrush recharger after being in the country nearly twelve hours. In my dad's words, it "sizzled and fried" because I'd thoroughly the thing beyond functionality. Now, I'm sitting at the desk and examining the outlet while writing this blog post. Hmmm. The outlet I plugged my cell phone charger into says 230V. Oops. Sorry, dentist!
And thank you mom for getting dad and I new toothbrushes from the front desk!
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