Beans, Beets, and Blackouts
By Tom Seest
At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
Please share this post with your friends, family, or business associates who may want follow the news from Sequatchie Crossing.
🎤 Audio Overview
The Great Crock-Pot Power Surge Of 2025
The Great Crock-Pot Power Surge of 2025
The power flickered three times at precisely 10:17 a.m. on the day of the First Annual “All-Church Crock-Pot Cook-Off & Electrified Fellowship Festival.” This was no coincidence. It was destiny, simmered on LOW for 6 to 8 hours.
The Fellowship Hall—newly rewired thanks to a generous donation from the Quilt Guild and a suspiciously vague check from RT Mullins—was packed with over 72 slow cookers. Mabel Dean Ashcroft had laminated crock tag labels, color-coded the outlets, and placed a hand-labeled warning on every single appliance: “DO NOT SET TO HIGH. THE LORD LOVES A LOW SIMMER.”
It began as a vision—Pastor Peeler’s, allegedly received during a night of deep prayer (and indigestion). The Lord had placed it upon his heart to unite the culinary gifts of the congregation in a holy union of bubbling chili, soup, and bean-based sanctification.
What He did not mention—at least not clearly—was the risk of voltage rebellion.
The Surge and the Spill
The Surge and the Spill
At 11:02 a.m., the eastern wall outlet blew, taking with it three Crock-Pots, half the Fellowship Hall lights, and Evelyn Tipton’s famous Seven Bean End-Times Revival Soup. The beans surged like they knew their moment had come.
Sparks danced. An alarm went off in the broom closet—no one knew it was connected. Coach Freddie yelled, “DEFENSE!” and instinctively tackled a rolling can of hominy.
Shelley Wexler claimed it was a frequency imbalance due to improper vibrational grounding. “You cannot line up that many root vegetables without chakra buffering,” she whispered, sipping beet juice through a copper straw.
Brett and Alyssa Crenshaw nodded solemnly, having just completed a group chant titled, “Namaste and Simmer.
Boot Barnes, seated by the fuse box with his Morse code clipboard, declared, “Back in ’79 we used propane and paper plates. Not one blackout. Just enlightenment and coleslaw.”
Clovis Strickland, donning his satellite dish hat, pulled out his homemade voltmeter and began sweeping for “power vampires.”
The Crock-Pot Accusations
The Crock-Pot Accusations
By 11:20, the blame game began. A casserole of suspicion was served, room temperature and bubbling with judgment.
Wade Langston marched in with his tape measure and font audit clipboard, declaring Mabel Dean’s laminated warning labels “visually aggressive and misaligned by 1.3 centimeters.” Mabel Dean promptly fainted into a vat of hot squash pudding. No injuries, but her corsage melted. Again.
Coach Freddie blew his whistle to restore order, knocking over three pots in the process. “This ain’t no soup kitchen—it’s the fourth quarter of flavor!”
Kenny Joe Teeter arrived shortly after, sipping a milkshake and saying, “Y’all, if nobody’s injured and the chili ain’t talkin’, I say we let it marinate.
Trixie Jo Bartlett, wearing her “Mayor of Beans” tiara from the Junior Ethics Tribunal Harvest Parade, began demanding affidavits of simmering time. She quickly scribbled a “Crock Accountability Pledge” and handed it out with glitter pens.
Clovis Strickland pulled out a grainy black-and-white schematic from 1963, claiming the church kitchen wiring was tied to a Cold War listening station under the parsonage. “It’s all connected. Beans. Beets. Bureaucracy.”
Dr. Neil Cowgill tried to explain voltage resistance using an impromptu diagram of St. Paul’s missionary journeys. Nobody asked him to, but Maggie Sue nodded respectfully and offered him a spoonful of emergency jambalaya.
The Bean Tribunal
The Bean Tribunal
At 12:03 p.m., Pastor Peeler convened an emergency “Potluck Ethics Panel.”
Trixie Jo Bartlett, wielding her glitter gavel and still wearing a sash that read “Miss Moist Cornbread 2024,” called for a formal investigation into “excessive wattage, questionable wattage, and wattage with intent.”
Boot Barnes brought forward a crockpot registry document last updated in 1987 and laminated in protest.
Doughboy Teeter volunteered to install “smart crock sensors” to monitor amperage in real time, but was booed after announcing it would be blockchain-enabled and require retina scans to stir.
Sonny Morales suggested a communal meal-sharing circle to redistribute the surviving dishes. Sister Lila Mae countered with a tambourine exorcism of the outlet strip. The strip sparked again—though that may have been unrelated.
Shelley offered a “crystal-buffered” outlet extender, which Boot declared a violation of the 1972 Fellowship Hall Aesthetics Treaty.
Tensions escalated when someone anonymously placed a sign reading “The Beans Know” above the switchboard. Clovis claimed it was a warning from sentient legumes.
Crock-Ageddon Avoided
Crock-Ageddon Avoided
At 1:47 p.m., a compromise was reached.
Shelley Wexler smudged the electrical panel.
Boot laminated a new sign: “No Crock-Pots Within 3 Feet of Fellowship.”
Chester Ray Blevins distributed emergency photocopies of historical potluck compliance charts.
Brett and Alyssa distributed hand-crafted grounding bracelets “infused with oat crystal resonance.”
Doughboy Teeter quietly rewired a subpanel using copper salvaged from a wind chime.
Mabel Dean, re-corsaged and re-hydrated, passed out redemption-themed pineapple upside-down cake to restore order. She later submitted a formal ordinance for Crock-Pot placement protocols to the Ladies Auxiliary.
Evelyn Grace Tipton returned to the piano and began playing “Blessed Assurance” in C minor. The congregation, still holding styrofoam bowls of lukewarm lentils, sang.
The lights flickered once. No one panicked. They just swayed.
Aftershocks
Aftershocks
By Monday morning, the following consequences had taken root:
Pastor Peeler introduced a sermon series titled “Let Your Light So Shine (But Not on the Same Circuit).”
Clovis launched a newsletter titled “Watt the Beans Know.”
Lurleen Davenport drafted a Crock-Zoning Amendment to regulate electrical events involving legumes.
Brett and Alyssa announced a slow-cooker intention circle for “healing culinary trauma.” Only Evelyn showed up. She left after ten minutes, humming in minor key.
MORAL
Let no wattage separate what God—and gelatin salads—have joined together.
Disclaimer: This story is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual power surges, crockpot explosions, or competitive bean-related outbursts in small Southern towns is purely coincidental. Though frankly, if it feels real… you might just be from Sequatchie Crossing. Any resemblance to real people, living or just stubborn, is purely accidental—but also maybe a little flattering. Sequatchie Crossing exists only in the minds of those brave enough to imagine a town where zoning laws, casseroles, and conspiracy cassettes collide in glorious disarray.
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
Here is a list of other resources you can review online to learn more:
- Udder Yum Ice Cream Shoppe
- Sequatchie County Lewis Chapel Recycling Center
- Big Possum Creek (Heiss Mountain) Trailhead of the Cumberland Trail
- Dunlap and Pikeville Yard Sale on Facebook
- Living Water Plumbing
- Verizon
- Smopfy Smoke Shop
- Sun Valley Coffee Shop
- Creative Discovery Museum
- H&M Armory
- Farm 58
- Avon Representative Brandy Wilkey
- Sequatchie Valley Homestead
- Eddie’s Excavation Services LLC
- Legacy Ridge Farms
Real Places Behind the Ruckus – From The Dunlap Directory
At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
Please share this post with your friends, family, or business associates who may want follow the news from Sequatchie Crossing.
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