Mr. Fix-It

My wife has been bothering me to put up a  celling fan in our bedroom for months. So last week we made the purchase and on Sunday I started to install it. What I had to do first was run the electric so I had to climb up into our small attic.  First of all it is 200 degrees and I am sweating like Rick Santorum in a bath house.

Before I climbed into the attic I got the tools that I thought I would need, which means every tool I have.  I come from a long line of family member that have no handyman skills. I can recall as a 7 year old watching my father measure for a vent to be installed in the heating duct in our cellar. He puts the vent up on the duct, traced it in pencil, cuts it out, puts the vent up and it falls right through duct. His motto was "Measure once and cut right a way."  And his tool box was a Electolux mothball can with a hammer,one screwdriver, butter knife and a ax. You get the picture no handyman genes.

So I am up in the attic with all my tools and the first thing I do is stand up and hit my head. OK be calm lets just do this.  So everything is going smoothly and that's when I tipped over a table that had a glass vase on it with 4 thousand glass beads in it, all over the floor............GREAT.  After 20 minutes of picking up the 4 thousand beads I continued on and did finish the project. Another 1 hour job handled in 8 hours by Mr. Fix it.....your pal.

Drop The Screwdriver and Back Away

This is my story and it's all about my non-handyman skills. About a month ago I had to purchase a timer for some accent lights on the outside of my home. The timer is the kind that you replace the on and off switch with. So I spent about an 20 minutes installing the timer and everything was working beautifully for about 2 weeks.

Then one night coming home late, I noticed that the one of the light was out. So I'm thinking it's the light bulb, and off to the hardware for a replacement. Because naturally I would not keep a spare around to make things easy. Off to the hardware, buy the bulb, go back home, replace the bulb, flip on the switch and nothing. So I take out the new bulb and screw it into a lamp, turn the lamp on and hallelujah there is light.

So Mr Non-Handyman thinks, after one one thousands of a second thought, it's got to be the fixture. Mr Non-Handyman takes out the fixture and heads off to the lighting store. In Willie's world, the fixture is a 4 inch fixture, so I am thinking 30 bucks at the most. Well that's not even close. How about 95 dollars, "Holy crap Batman!". OK, I buy the fixture, which is not made of gold as I suspected, and back home I go to replace the fixture with the new one.

After I install the fixture, screw in the light bulb, which I now have a spare, turn the switch on and nothing . Replace the bulb, nothing. "Oh Jebus why do you hate me." That is when the bulb went off, and not the bulb in the fixture but the light bulb over my head. Check the timer hook up butt head. I pulled off the cover and pulled out the timer and there it was, a black wire just staring at me all by it self, not attached to any other wire. I attach the wire, put the cover on and hit the switch. We have light.

Pros: I have a extra fixture and a replacement bulb.
Cons: I spent 95 dollars for nothing and waisted about 3 hours that I could have spent on the couch doing something to improve my life, like watching the Simpsons.