My light bulb battle

Listening to Evvy tell her story of proudly changing a light bulb brought a big grin to my face about my own battle with a light bulb. As I write this I can’t help but laugh and I have to say in this case, I think the light bulb won.

Anyway, it was a couple of months after my ex had moved out,  when the light bulb on the stairs went out. You have to appreciate that the stairs were sort of semi-circular in the entrance hall, which had a cathedral ceiling. About halfway up the stairs was a decorative alcove and at the top of the alcove was a light fixture for a spotlight. I’m quite tall – 5ft. 8 ins. but that wasn’t tall enough to be able to stand on the stairs to reach the bulb and getting any sort of ladder or chair there to stand on was completely out of the question.

What does it take to change a light bulb?

The easy solution would have been to ask my ex how he’d managed to do it before and I’m guessing he might even have changed it for me. But oh no, I was too proud, too ‘I can do this myself’ to do that. Instead I headed to the local hardware store and sure enough, there I found an extendable pole with a variety of attachments for changing light bulbs. The guy at the store even assured me the attachments would work on the CFL bulbs which at that time didn’t have the covers they have now to make them look like regular bulbs.

Back home I attached the suction cup to pole, dampened it and placed it on the light bulb. It was pretty easy to unscrew and I thought I had it nailed. Trying to be energy-conscious and because the guy at the hardware store said so, I then placed the CFL bulb I was going to use as a replacement into the cage-like attachment and tried to screw that into the fixture. That’s when the trouble really started.

The bulb moved in the cage so wasn’t straight enough to screw into the fixture completely however, it was now stuck. The cage was also stuck on the bulb. As I tugged on the pole the light fixture came out of the wall and was just hanging there by the wires. Now I really didn’t know what to do.

I did consider calling our local contractor, Curtis. He was a friendly guy always willing to help. Even though Curtis wasn’t as tall as me and wouldn’t be able to reach the bulb any easier than I could, I felt sure he would know what to do. However, I discounted that idea because my ex would sometimes hang out with Curtis and some other friends at the pub and I did not want to be the joke of the evening. Feeling pretty exasperated, I decided I’d leave it as it was and think about it.

This wasn’t necessarily the best decision and certainly wasn’t risk-free: the house was on the market and I was supposed to be keeping it show-ready. That was why I was so anxious to change the light bulb – realtors always like to put all the lights on for a showing. What would I do now if there was a showing with this light fixture hanging out the wall with a long pole attached to the light bulb? It had all the potential for a Monthy Python skit.

I think I left it hanging for two days, pondering on the problem each time I passed it. Then I gave it another try and with the help of another pole did manage to free the first pole and the replacement light bulb. At this point, I decided the best option was simply to push the fixture back into the wall and forget about the bulb. And forget about it I did … until Evvy shared her story.

The spotlight in the alcove did look very lovely but my little episode did make me wonder if the designer ever considered how someone would change the  light bulb. Anyone else with an amusing light bulb story they’d like to share?