Blinded By the Light

Cynical and I are home improvement losers. It's not an overstatement, it's the truth. We have yet to complete a project that didn't end in disaster, a fight or a call to his dad.

Once I planted lillies at the entrance of our garage door. The next day the door didn't open automatically any more. Cynical was convinced that somehow I had severed the electrical line to the garage. I was panicked. Wouldn't I have known if I cut an electrical line? We did everything we knew to fix it, which meant we pushed the button about 10 times and called it a day. Finally we knew we had to get the car out of the garage and tail between our legs, we called his dad. Mr. Fix-It came with many a tool in hand and in one moment diagnosed the problem: we had not severed any lines, we had turned it off with the flip of a switch inside. Didn't that switch work the ceiling fan? How did we miss that one?

So, you can see why I am not sure why we ever thought we'd be qualified for our next project. I am not quite sure what got into us. Maybe it was a burst of hope that maybe this time it would be different. (Rule of thumb: if at first you don't succeed, quit.)

For awhile we had been wanting and wishing that we had new knobs on our bedroom and guestroom doors. We had done a poor painting job on the doors and hence the knobs were covered in white paint and were, honestly, cheap to begin with.

In our enthusiasm and in a rare visit to Home Depot, we had convinced ourselves that this was not a big deal. Surely two educated, TLC-watching adults could change out two simple door knobs. After a half-hour of discussing exactly which knob we wanted, we finally headed anxiously out the big automatic doors of home improvement hell.

We didn't go at it right away, we opted instead to prolong the project anxiety until we were in the mood for door knob replacement. Finally, the mood found us and we, tool box in hand, ventured up the stairs to to take a stab at it, literally.

First and foremost, we had to remove the old crusty doorknobs. Easy enough, right? Wrong! Weworked and we jiggled and we maneuvered and sat there in amazement. How did these things ever get put on in the first place? Not a screw in sight. Finally we found the "key" to removing them and got the first off quickly. Victory! I did a little "door knob gone" dance and we started on the second one. This wasn't so bad, right?

Why didn't we quit while we were ahead? Cynical was the first to make a move on the second door and at one point I looked over to see a mangled mess of fake brass. He even wiped his brow at one point in frustration. (We never work up a sweat around here.)

After much twisting of metal and me stringing together words like the dad in "A Christmas Story" as he fixed the furnace, we got the second one off. Victory! Victory! All my friends would be jealous of my brushed nickel door knobs. They'd be the talk of the block!

So, we opend up the blister pack and walked confidently toward the door to realize one thing very quickly: they didn't fit. Aren't door knobs like lightbulbs? Standard? Apparently not!

In the photo above, I present to you our doors as they have appeared for the last week and will continue to appear until we figure out what to do.

Our next project was the replacement of a bare bulb in our hallway with a snappy new light fixture. After the door knob fiasco, I had considered simply hiding the fixture and claiming that the bare bulb look was our take on minimalism.

However, Cynical, the man I love, wanted to make the attempt. Electricity and Cynical, I just didn't think it was a good combination. But, in support of my guy, I opted to support rather than abort the project.

We switched off the breaker to the upstairs. (Impressed already, aren't you? This much I know: don't work with anything electrified.) We removed the old fixture. I cringed expecting to see my dear Cynical lit up like a roman candle, but it came down easily. (During this process I held the flashlight. I am an expert at this, receiving years of training from my dad and his "Don't move or I will hit you with this wrench" school of instruction.)

Next we painted around the opening to assure the greatest aesthetic quality. Then he put the fixture up and connected the wires. He mumbled something about a ground, but I was too busy picturing the house on fire.

Now for the moment of truth. I flipped on the breaker and walked back in to see Cynical at the top of the stairs, hands on hips, feet shoulder-width apart, in a super hero stance. And guess what: there was light. There. . . was. . . light!

I stood in amazement. I love this man. I love this man.

I have flipped the light on and off several times in an attempt to assure we were successful before I shared this with anyone else. I could envision me bragging about this feat and me flipping the switch fruitlessly while Cynical ran out the door in shame.

Who knows, maybe now we can take he big orange extension cord out of our bedroom and put in a proper plug in like civilized folk. Or maybe we should quit while we we're ahead.