Comfort and Safety

Having grown up in a time and place where electrical supply was unreliable and people had an uncertain grasp on how to work with electricity anyway — yes, the once and future time, what can I say? — so that you might very well have to take a candle with you to bed (HOW I never burned the house down trying to read till all hours is a minor mystery) because the electricity was out, again, or where people thought nothing of replacing that darn fuse that keeps blowing with a penny, I grew up with a very real fear of house fires.

Having spent some time living in the curious level of apartments best described as “student housing” (where not only might the wiring be wonky, but the cabinets might be so low over the stove that a small oil spill can turn into “oop, there goes half the…