Digital Photography, has off all things, made me a much better handyman in general, and a much more confident electrician. Now, me laying claim to being an electrician is paramount to man who has been shot at, but not actually hit, making the declaration of being bullet proof. The fact that the neither myself nor that man, are dead yet, is the only thing bolstering our respective claims.

A while back I was working on a water well, the kind with true electricity, and did everything right. I cut the power, put a board down on the wet concrete so I wouldn’t be working in a puddle, and was wearing a pair of light rubber gloves. A friend of my neighbor’s didn’t know I was working on the well, couldn’t understand why the water wasn’t running, and finding the tripped breaker, flipped it back on. I saw spangling afterimages when I closed my eyes for a week after that. Had I not being working on a dry board, and not been wearing rubber gloves, it might have been a little more interesting than I generally like when manmade lightning and I butt heads.

If she reads this  I’m a dead man, but then again, giving my penchant for doing things myself, and having as little skill at such as anyone alive, my fate is pretty much sealed sooner or later. Anyway, I was dating a woman who had a demonic little four year old son, and he was of the species of little boy who would do anything you wanted him to do, as long as you carefully couched the idea in an imperative that forbid him to take such action. I was hooking up an electric fence to keep the mutts from escaping from the backyard, and yes, Bert tries that on occasion. He’s toting a steel pin in his foreleg where the vet reattached the bone, hence the powered fence. But when I grabbed the wire it didn’t work. I tried everything but no. The woman and child arrived, and no sooner had I warned him to stay away from the wire he grabbed it, just to see what would happen. He screamed bloody murder. I grabbed the wire. Nothing.  The woman, suspicious of my claim the wire wasn’t working, grabbed it. Nothing. She bid the child to come closer, so she might show him the wire was harmless. As soon as the child touched his mother, who was holding the wire, it bit him. He screamed. Ah, the light bulb went off. Both she and I were wearing rubber soled shoes. The child was barefoot. At this point she was eyeing me as if I had set the whole thing up. But I gave the child an ice cream sandwich, the last I owned, to make up for it. No sooner had he gotten the treat unwrapped enough to eat, Bert closed in on him, instinctively, he pulled the ice cream away from Bert, but he didn’t see Sam behind him, waiting for him to do just that. Sam inhaled the ice cream sandwich before anyone would so much as breath, and spit the wrapper out.  She and I aren’t speaking right now.

But I digress.

I took digital photos of the inner workings of the well’s electrical box before I unhooked a thing. I printed the photos out in color. No matter what else might happen, the right wire is going to be connected to the right place, and I have the photos to prove it. So today when I was going to hang a new ceiling fan, I took color photos of the wiring, again. Fortunately, the fan hangs near my computer so all I had to do was keep the photo on the screen and life would be good.

I put the new fan up just like the old one was hung. I attached all the right wires to all the right wires. It didn’t work. It was then I checked the instructions. Yes, in fact I did everything right, but it still didn’t work. In the meantime, the instructions were printed in a font that can only be described as microscopic. I drug the reading glasses out and walked through the steps. Dammit! I did do everything right! I took the damn thing down and reconnected the wires, making sure I had them right and tight. I checked the photo. I looked for my glasses because that is the nature of glasses, to go missing when you’re really trying to get something done. I really did do everything right. I checked the fan, and discovered this tiny tag with this message:

Remove rubber packing mounts and discard before using.

Nowhere in the instructions are these things mentioned. I removed the packing mounts and hit the switch. Nothing. Dammit again! As I was about to  tear it down and try again, I pulled the chain. It  lives! It lives! It only took about a million more times longer than someone who knows what the hell they’re going, but hey, it is done!

Take Care,

Mike