I'm living the light bulb joke. How many short moms does it take to change 14 light bulbs?
Things have been a little wild around here....new job, writing emergency, holidays, living and learning my new life. Sometimes there are little bumps in the road. This is a big-ish house -not McMansion size at all, but big- and the ceilings are high. And light bulbs live their little shiny lives, and then they die. Mostly, I work around that, because changing the light bulbs is a HUGE production. But 14 burned out light bulbs, well, that gets your attention.
Don't laugh. Don't -and this will be harder- roll your eyes. I'm not entirely sure I know how to change a light bulb. Sure, I can change the ones in lamps and low things. But when you have to unscrew the light fixture, while standing on a ladder, and holding big things with small hands WAY over your head..... yeah. There is no good outcome here.
I'll just sit here in the dark. And wait for my children to come over and fix this.
WAIT JUST A COTTON PICKIN' MINUTE.
These are the children who, a mere few years ago, could not be trusted to pick up their socks. And a short few years before that had to be quizzed rather carefully about personal hygiene. I taught them those things. How can it be true now -WHY would it be true now- that I have to wait for them to fix this for me?
Yes, they are taller -as is your average 5th grader. Yes, they have demonstrated that they already know how to do this task. And they are very competent and fabulous, no question about that. But...really.... these are light bulbs we're talking about.
I can probably do this. I am smarter than a light fixture. Surely. It may take me a while, but the next time you see me, I will have changed 14 bulbs. And replaced them with CFLs, too, because I'm that kind of enviro-girl. If I can teach kids to not only wash behind their ears, but to value washing behind their ears, I can - shaking my fist at the heavens, like Scarlet O'Hara- as God as my witness, change a few light bulbs.
I'll report back.
5 comments:
My advice--get a taller ladder. We have...um...really high ceilings at the restaurant, and we found out that your average five-foot (or whatever) stepladder just didn't cut it for reaching the light fixtures or the HVAC filters. So we bought a really tall ladder...I think it's a 9-footer. The one caveat is that you have to make sure you have a tall place to store said tall ladder.
I have the vertical challenger as well, so I invested in bulbs that are supposed to be longer lasting. The most horrible thing though is to have a smoke alarm that you can't reach if the battery starts chirping. So I got longer lasting batteries for those too. You can always lure tall people over and ply them with food...
I'm confident that you will find a way, Andrea. The compact fluorescents are really worth it. One I bought about 12-13 years ago and brought from the last house just burned out this week. Back then they cost about $15. Still worth it.
You can always borrow my tall husband. I was told by Andrew yesterday that he is little, I am short and Daddy is a giant.
Fee Fi Fo Fum
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