Frankenhaus Strikes Again

I watched the moon set this morning.

As I mentioned, we had an electrician come out to fix our kitchen light this morning. He arrived just after hubby-Eric left for work, and I directed him into the kitchen and apologized for the dimness of the room. It took him about ten minutes to fix the ballast. He basically took it apart and reconnected all the wires, which had gotten loose, and reassembled it again. That was it. Loose wiring. If not for the fear of getting electrocuted, I could've done the job myself (I actually had considered taking the thing apart and trying to fix it). He told me that it's good for another 20 years.

But far more embarrassing was the light in the garage. It's been out for months. Very annoying. Worse, I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was wrong. When the previous bulb went out, we replaced it, but the new bulb didn't work. We tried a bunch of bulbs, none worked. We just assumed no power was getting to the light socket. HA! What had happened is that the previous, old-fashioned, bulb went out while we were in the midst of replacing all the old bulbs in our Frankenhaus with new compact florescent extended-life/lower-energy bulbs. What we didn't know was this: although the new bulbs appeared to fit fine into the socket, the socket was actually too deep for them to make a connection. That's right. The bulbs we were using just didn't fit into the socket. AAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!! He put in an old-fashioned bulb and it worked great. Lovely.

We have no old-type bulbs in the house, except the one he put in. I'm going to have to buy some for that light socket, or replace the socket. I may just replace the socket so I can take the old one and smash it to kingdom come with a sledgehammer.

When I asked for a price quote yesterday, I was told that it would cost $130 just for the electrician to come out. I figured since he took such a short amount of time, he would only charge me for the trip. I was wrong. When I asked how much I owed, he said, "Oh, let's say $40." Whew. I'm willing to pay $40 for a lesson in loose wiring and bulb sizing. Way better than $130.

And, after he left, I watched the moon set behind the trees out of our front window.