A Fawlty Towers Moment

Recently, we initiated a project to replace a set of ceiling lighting fixtures, horrible Pottery Barn Art Nouveau crap, reflecting the non-existent taste of the previous owners. We got a tremendously competent old friend in the handyperson business to do the high ladder work (one fixture was 15 feet up in the air, dangling from our great room ceiling), and the whole thing was executed with, from my perspective, efficiency and quality.

The high lights, installed by someone who knows what he's doing and isn't on chemo.	The dining room pendants, those vicious, vicious bastards

However, at the same time, we ordered what looked like a simple set of pendent lights to go over the dining room table, one fixture with four halogen low-voltage drops. And since this was just a normal height ceiling and nothing that required risk of life and limb for someone taking doses of steroids that will keep me out of the Olympics for at least the next few sessions, I said, "Oh, I can do that one."

Visualize, if you can, the Fawty Towers episode where John Cleese has to keep running back and forth to a local restaurant to pick up dinner, since the hotel's newly hired cook has had an alcoholic relapse, and the car keep stalling out.

I discover that, in order to shorten the pendent cords to something less than the 17 meters or so of length they come with, you need to strip them carefully (read with a precision wire stripper) to get just the Teflon coating off), then tease the outer wire mesh apart to reveal the inner conductor, twist the mesh into a conductor of its own, wrap with tape ... you get the picture.

Then, force the newly reconfigured pendent cord up through the strain relief, destroying what you've just done. Tighten the strain relief, redo the conductor work, standing on a ladder, and connect each of the four lamps to its transformer, using wire nuts.

Schlep down to the breaker box, turn the power on, and check to see if all lights light. They do not. Power off. Redo the connections on those that don't. Power on. Hooray, all four work.

Slide the cover, through which the lights are dangling, up to the fixture plate (standing on a ladder), tuck cords neatly away, secure cover. Power on. Test. Two of four lights do not light. This is where the John Cleese bit comes in.

"You vicious, vicious bastard! I've given you fair warning! I've been more than patient, and now I'm really fed up. Now, I'm going to give you a damned good thrashing!"

Actually, what I said as this up and down the damn ladder business went on (redoing wire nut connections, one by one) was substantially more graphic and Americanized, until I realized that I had the dining room window open and that our neighbors small children were playing in their back yard, 15 feet away. Oops, stifle.

Anyway, after more test and rework episodes than my many years of software quality planning would suggest, the damn thing works, but two or three clear-cut results have emerged:

• I am not an electrician
  
• I will never do this kind of job with more than one light again
  
• As long as she avoids the biopsy scar on the back of my head,
  Linda is empowered to administer a dope slap each time I say, "I can do
  that part," at least until the chemo is over with