It is 1:04am.
I am in the middle of a great crawl space dream. I have my respirator, my goggles and my full-body condom on----and all is well in my dark, low and womb-like world. All of a sudden there is this ringing sound-----it is my cell phone. I always bring my cell phone into the crawl space, but as I am scrambling to find it I realize I am out of bed and digging it out of the pile of clothes on the floor next to the bed (the pile my sweetie affectionately refers to as the "carpet" on my side of the bed)----I'm not in the crawl space at all.
I look at the flip-phone screen.
It is my daughter's smiling face.
Oh, oh,---this ought to be good.
I half expected it to be another one of her great calls like the time she and her friends wanted to know how many chickens would fit inside a cow. I LOVE questions like that----well, maybe not at 1:am but.....
.....instead, she told me that one of the wall receptacles was making a "hissing" sound---and it was keeping her awake.
She held the phone up to it.
It was REALLY loud and was indeed hissing. By now I was fully awake----definitely not in the crawl space anymore. I ran through a couple of scenarios with her and ended up with: "does it feel warm?" "No," was her answer. I said, "Well then go back to bed ----and call me in the morning,"----what any good doctor/inspector would advise I think.
I called 
her in the morning and she answered: "I'm still alive!"
We talked some more about the many new possibilities I had come up with during the night----as I lay sleepless in bed after her call. I had pretty much concluded that it was highly unlikely that it was anything electrical, even given that the sound appeared to be coming from the outlet. I recommended that she take some pictures around the house outside to see if that would help us figure out the mystery. In the process, she discovered that there was a leak in the area of the hissing sound, and water was flooding down the foundation. By the looks of the picture it had been leaking for quite some time----and perhaps had finally completely broken so that it could be heard.
Time to call the landlord----
----perhaps he also knows how many chickens fit inside a cow.
Charles Buell
PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)
all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.
;)
;)
Charles, I hate those strange sounds in a home or apartment. We have squirrels running on our roof and I swear they are in the attic. But I've checked, and they are just on the roof.