Walkie Talkies are a DIY Must Have

When Ted, my mom, and I went to Yucatan and Guatemala in 2005, we brought with us a set of walkie talkies. Most of the pyramid complexes are huge and sprawling. Mom didn't want to climb every single pyramid with us, but we didn't want to lose track of each other, either, so the walkie talkies worked really well. She could visit the market stalls and have a cool drink while we scrambled over ancient ruins, and we wouldn't have to worry about meeting up at a certain time--we just gave a shout when one of us was ready to head back.

We haven't used the walkie talkies since.

But this weekend, when the power mysteriously went out in one and a half rooms of the tenants' unit, it required a great deal of shutting the breaker on and off to test the connections down a length of wire. All three bedrooms of that unit, the bathroom, half the living room, and the refrigerator--not the whole kitchen, mind you, just the refrigerator--are on a single breaker. The power had gone out in the last bedroom/living room, so we needed to trace the length of the wire to see where it had gone faulty. (Ted eventually traced it to a connection in the middle bedroom, and got it working properly.)

I manned the breaker while Ted worked. The problem is the breaker is in the basement, the tenants' unit two floors up. Shouting doesn't work as a means of communication--you simply can't hear from that far away--and cell phones quickly became a hassle. The walkie talkies ended up being the perfect solution, and I'm glad we've found a second use for them.

Plus, they're pretty darn fun. Breaker 1-9.