understanding the concept of wattage

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Why is it people have such a hard time understanding that different appliances consume different amounts of electricity. At the thanksgiving dinner yesterday, we were all cooking in my mom's kitchen when a fuse blew. My sister says "Why am I always blowing fuses? I've only got 3 things plugged in!?!" She turns to me and says " You've got a million things plugged in behind your computer, why don't you ever have any problems?!?!" I had to suppress the laughter.

Of course, it's what she had plugged in...A crock pot, electric fryer, and then she started the microwave! I told her that you can only use about 1800 watts per circuit, look on the back of the appliance to find out how much power they take and add it up, If it's over 1800, you are going to blow a fuse. Move a few things to a different outlet" Despite my aspieness, I could tell she was getting frustrated and angry, despite me telling her the solution to the problem. She then just said "Well, can you go into the basement and get the electricity back on?" I told her " just move the fryer to the outlet down there that still has power first so it won't blow again" as she then looked even more frustrated. Apparently, she didn't want to know the solution to the problem (spreading the load out to different circuits) She just wanted to make infinte amounts of electricity pour out of a single outlet!

Blow a fuse ???! ! I haven't seen a home with a fuse box in years ! !!

Brings back memories of me youth, it does...

It's sometimes fun to see the odd corelations that NT's make to try and explain things like my someone I knew who had locked up the motor on their car and was talking about it at work the next day - "but i thought the oil light would come if I needed to get an oil change"

Of course it's easy to make infinite power flow from an outlet, I can just see some ingnorant saying this "just go down stairs and put in as a big a fuse into the socket as you can make fit. That way we can plug in the crock pot, a couple of roasters, a toaster, a few warming trays, the portable fridge, and the microwave, all on one circuit!"

Just make sure your cellphone battery is fully charged for when you have to call the fire department.