January 10, 2024 – In a move that would have surprised mansplainers, had there been any around, but was accepted as business as usual by the helpful women of her local information and services Facebook page, a widow who calls herself “Ridiculouswoman” successfully replaced a faulty light switch in her downstairs bathroom a week ago Tuesday.
“It was strange, how quickly it came on,” said Ridiculous. “The switch was fine the day before, and then all of a sudden, it was all wiggly and wobbly and the lights wouldn’t go on.”
Steeling her resolve, and determined not to dip into her meager funds to pay an electrician for a repair she was certain she could accomplish on her own, Ridiculouswoman proceeded to her basement and turned the circuit breaker corresponding to the breezeway bathroom to the off position.
Back upstairs, she found that while the circuit was off in the bathroom, the lights in the hallway just outside it still worked, while the decorative Christmas lights in the outside patio were off. Later she found that switching that bathroom circuit off also turned off the front hall light two rooms away, and an outlet in the living room located on the front wall of the house.
“It’s an old house, what can I say,” she observed.
Holding a flashlight in her mouth, and armed with an array of screwdrivers, the widow removed the wall plate and faulty switch and took it to a nearby hardware store, where she took the reasonable step of asking for help in finding a matching switch among the many on offer.
“I’m not ashamed of asking for help in that circumstance,” said Ms. Ridiculous. “I mean, who’s got time?”
Returning home, and, she admits, with some trepidation, she returned the flashlight to her mouth while using her bare fingers to bend copper wire, which was thicker than she expected, around the screws that corresponded to the configuration of the old faulty switch. Back in the basement, she turned the circuit breaker back on.
Nothing exploded, and nothing ignited.
Wrapping her hand in a towel, she gently turned the dual switches on, one for the lights, and one for the fan. They both turned on.
“HA!,” Ms. Ridiculous reports exclaiming.
However, the electrical operation encountered a snag when, while the lights went off when the switch was flipped off, the fan did not.
“OK that’s weird,” Ms. Ridiculous recalls thinking.
At this point Ms. Ridiculous consulted her local information and services Facebook group, on the assumption there might be a member with some insight as to why something would go on but not got off.
She received many helpful replies, warnings about being ripped off by unscrupulous electricians, diagrams, and hypotheses about perhaps having wired the switch backwards.
She retreated to ruminate for a while, after, of course, turning the circuit back off.
After paying much too little attention to her Angelic Daughter, who gave up on the evening’s scheduled music time and retired when her mother jumped up out of her recliner and returned to the bathroom, Ms. Ridiculous deduced that rather than backwards, she had wired the switch upside down.
“The ground screw on the old switch was on the bottom, while on the new switch it was on the top,” she explained. “And there wasn’t a wire attached to the ground switch. Oops.”
After stopping to say a prayer of thanks that nothing exploded and nothing ignited, Ridiculous realized that the ground screw was on top of the new switch, so the wire that was on the bottom on the old switch side needed to go on the top around the screw next to the ground screw on the new switch, and the two live wires needed to be on the bottom.
“Everything clicked when it occurred to me I had it upside down. Well, not literally clicked, I mean I realized that if I reconfigured the wires opposite the way I had them, everything should work.”
At that point, it had gotten dark outside and the hallway lights plus the mouth-held flashlight weren’t providing sufficient illumination for the task, so Ms. Ridiculous resorted to using her phone flashlight, resting in a towel loop attached to the wall, to provide the light needed to complete the job.
“It was a very tight fit. I was anxious about pulling on the wires, because the box in the wall was really full of wires, like a snake’s nest, and I couldn’t bend the ones I needed to attach enough with just my fingers. So I rummaged around and found my pink-handled needle-nosed pliers from my girl-tool tool box (pink handles! smaller grip!)
and used them to bend the wires easily around the correct screws. Then I tightened everything up, made sure the screws weren’t touching the metal box inside the wall, because, you know, I figured that wouldn’t be good, shoved the switch into the wall with the live wires down and the ground wire up, which required some twisting, and replaced the wall plate.”
Emboldened, Ms. Ridiculous returned to the basement and turned the circuit back on. Nothing exploded, and nothing ignited. This is still the case nine days later, so, so far, so good.
Back in the bathroom, she flipped the switch for the lights, and they came on. She flipped the switch for the fan, and waited the requisite two minutes for the vintage 70’s fixture to groan to life with its zzzzht-zzzht-zzzzhtzzzzhtzzzzzht sound until it reached operational velocity. With hope in her heart, she then turned the fan off.
And it went off.
“HELL YEAH! I DID IT!,” Ridiculous remembers shouting. It may have been “F**K YEAH!, Ridiculous speculated. She didn’t quite remember.
She went back online to thank the helpful members of the Facebook group, and found that while she was working on the switch, one man among all the helpful women had posted a humble and slightly unsure suggestion, which she no longer needed.
“Really, there was a remarkable absence of mansplaining. I was impressed,” said Ridiculous. “And just for the record, even if my husband was still living, it would have been me taking care of this. He would have insisted that if I tried to fix it myself, I would get electrocuted, while simultaneously screaming at me not to dare spending money to hire an electrician. “Go upstairs if you have to!” he’d say, and “what’s wrong with peeing in the dark, anyway?”
“But I wanted my makeup light back. The lights and magic mirrors in that bathroom make me look ten years younger and I’m damned if I’m going to part with that little pick-me-up every morning before work.”
In telling her story to other widows she knows, Ridiculous identified a common streak of self-sufficiency and money-saving DIY habits that these women have used for a variety of home repairs.
“D’UH,” said Ridiculous. “Being a widow means just getting on with it. It requires a “I damn well can do this myself” attitude. I thank my Dad for teaching me how to “use my bean” and solve problems myself, even though I think he taught me that mostly because he assumed since I was a fat girl, no man would ever come along to do stuff for me.”
“Well, a man did came along, but he was a poet and a chess player–not a handy guy,” said Ridiculous, “so I was and still am the internet-setter-upper and troubleshooter, the toilet-unclogger, the garbage disposal-unstucker, and the Christmas lights putter-upper.”
Ridiculous reports that those Christmas lights also came back on when she turned the circuit back on, just as charmingly as they had during the entire Christmas season.
“But I took them down two nights ago because it was supposed to snow, and this weekend temperatures are forecast to be in the single digits. I do have my limits” she said.
I loved this! Well written and using the 3rd person point of view was perfect. I applaud your “do it yourself woman” attitude and the perseverance to follow through until success was achieved. Brava!!!! and thanks for the laugh out loud moment before I turn in for the night. I will now safely turn off my lights and trundle off in appreciation of working fixtures. Happy New year to you and yours and all of us who read your offerings.
Thsnks, Judi! Glad you got a laugh out of it! Happy New Year to you, too – and to all the widows just gettin’ it done out there!
Now I have to do the same with my drippy bathroom faucet that I’ve been trying to ignore since before Christmas!
Best of luck! My kitchen faucet came off in my hand last night (the part where the water comes out, not the handles that turn the water on) but I figured out how to push it back on and screw the base tight – something was defintely broken in there, but whatever I did, it’s working and so far, not leaking! Fingers crossed!
Many years ago, I volunteered to install a kitchen ceiling fan for a divorced friend. She shut off the circuit breaker that controlled the refrigerator, toaster, dishwasher, microwave, and lights. I climbed a step ladder to the ceiling and used a screwdriver to unscrew the old fixture. Seconds later, I was lying on the floor, after being knocked off the ladder by a surge of electricity from what was the only outlet in the kitchen not connected to that particular circuit breaker.
So, nowadays, I call Maintenance when I need to change the battery in my smoke alarm.
Hats off to you and all the other do-it-yourselfers who actually know what they’re doing.