I was worried it was going to turn into a three-day job. That’s what all the Mr. Fixit jobs at our house somehow turn into, because well. …we’re not handy, or mechanically inclined in the least.
Our kitchen light had been going off all by itself for the past two weeks. Barring the presence of a haunting, I deduced that a technical problem was ensuing. Although I was somewhat enjoying the fact that it wasn’t as bright as an operating room in the kitchen at 6:00 a.m., trying to make dinner by the romantic fan hood light was becoming a problem. God only knows what was going into the soup.
So, it came as no surprise when I announced to my husband that there appeared to be a problem with the main light in the kitchen that required fixing before Daylight Savings Time came to an official end. A two man job…a three-hour tour ….a trip to the hospital…I envisioned it all.
Ken brought the ladder came up from the garage and it was suddenly up to me to determine which breaker was going to cut the power to the overhead light. Not wanting to be accused of killing my husband for the insurance money, I shut down every power supply in the room.
Ken took the current fixture down…reconnected it and was barely off the ladder when it stopped working again. Seems that any little movement to the fixture, even one required to re-point the lights rendered it lifeless. After almost a decade, the fixture had given up the ghost. “Crappy materials they make these things out of” he grumbled. That it had worked for almost ten happy years seemed a moot point to him now.
With visions of an electrical fire dancing in my head, we kept the kitchen lights off and dashed to the lighting store to examine the array of fixtures. When we returned home with something we thought would work on the sloped ceiling, something very much like the current fixture only darker, out came the ladder once more. Off went the breakers.
Ken was no sooner up the ladder than the swearing began. “Help me!” he cried, in a pleading tone. I thought I was helping; I was carefully reading the tedious instructions.
But, I scurried up the bad side of the ladder anyway …not the side with the nice wide evenly spaced steps. Oh no. On my side the “rungs” were razor thin with a 2.5 feet gap between them. I hoisted myself up, one foot on the horrible metal step, one foot planted firmly on the counter, holding the lighting fixture with one hand and a death grip on the ladder with the other, trying not to fall into the sink.
I’m not sure what it is about a 4-foot ladder than strikes fear in my heart. I can dance on top of the CN Tower without a care in the world, but a 4-foot ladder? May as well be on the top of Mt. Everest swaying in the wind. I glance around the kitchen wondering what it would be like to be that tall, in an effort to divert my mind from how horribly uncomfortable I was.
He was swearing and screwing as fast as he could, but all I could think of was, “how much longer do I need to hold this thing?” All he could talk about were the crazy people who take obvious pleasure in building devices where every screw head requires a different screwdriver. THAT explains our current screwdriver collection numbering over 50 strong.
At last, the screwing and swearing was over and the fixture was up. Good to know that something had been erected. The only problem now was the plate thingy covering the inside of the fixture seemed to be dangling. Problem.
I flipped the breaker to see how successful we had been. The light came on. However, it was quickly determined that we needed to install the actual mounting plate that came with THIS fixture which was obviously much shorter.
And so, after much grumbling, in the space of an hour we erected our new kitchen light fixture not only once, but twice. And I’m happy to say that the lights are once again coming on at our house, even if nobody’s home.
Now all we need to do is change the light in the TV room to match it. Aarrggh.
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