The War Comes Home

If it isn’t one thing with imperialism, it’s another.

This morning, while a licensed electrician was improvising his way through my circuit panel, he informed me that the aluminum wiring I have in my house tends to run hotter than copper wiring, run up an electric bill by up to 10% more than copper, burn out circuits and lights quicker than copper, and is a potential fire hazard.

I wondered “why would an electrician wire a house with aluminum wiring in the first place?”

The answer is that during the Vietnam War in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s (when my house was built), copper was being used for shell casings in ammunition, driving the price up. So because the Dulles brothers convinced President Eisenhower (and by proxy every Cold War president) of their “domino theory” that if one more country went Communist, every other country in the world would follow, I have substandard wiring in my house that keeps shorting out when I turn my goddamn oven on.

War.
Huh.

Good God y’all.
What is it good for?

Absolutely nothin’.

Say it again.