"Wires", #inktober52, #inktober

I lamented to a couple of millennial friends a while back that their peers don't know how to do real basic things like cook an egg or change a light bulb.  My friends were unfazed.  One idly asked, "What do they do when a light bulb goes out?"  "They call an electrician or wait until somebody else comes over who knows what to do", I answered.  My friend shrugged his shoulders and said, "Problem solved then."  I wanted to scream.  No, what about the next bulb?  Why are they wasting money on electricians?!

It seems like I should've remembered my concerned outrage when my kitchen light started acting up.  Sometimes the pull chain worked, sometimes it didn't.  Sometimes I had to climb up on my sink and fiddle with it until the light went off.  When this happened often enough that I found myself swearing on a regular basis, I plugged in an inadequate lamp because I'm not calling an electrician for a stupid light.  I'm good at ignoring some problems.

I told a pal about this and he told me the light was an easy fix, the inexpensive part easily found at the home improvement store.  Okay.  I listened, but I didn't get the part.  I envisioned the store being filled with guys too tough to wear masks during our ever-increasing Covid-19 problem.  Besides, my friend thought this was an easy part to find, but he's a guy.  Those stores are designed for people like him.  They're intended to confuse people with ovaries.  I kept living with my inadequate lamp and washed dishes in daylight until my pal showed up with the part and a bottle of Jack Daniels.  Thanks!

I'll admit I was more drawn to the whiskey than the stupid switch, but I dutifully went to the basement and turned off the "kitchen" breaker.  This did not turn off the kitchen light.  I went back to the basement and tried another breaker.  Up the steps, down the steps, up, down, up, down... F it, I turned off the main switch.  The light finally went off along with every other electric thing I own, including my tetchy computer.  Arg.

I climbed onto the kitchen sink and balanced precariously next to the ceiling while dismantling the light fixture, fiberglass insulation wafting in my face and sticking to my sweaty face on one of the hottest days of the year.  My pal had said there were 3 wires inside.  He was wrong.  There were 5 or 6.  Despite this confusing turn of events, I successfully hooked up the new switch, muscled the light fixture back onto the ceiling, and turned the main breaker on again.  Then, there was light!

I put a long-life bulb in the light fixture.  It's my sincere hope I never have to mess with that light again.  I turn the light on and off for fun these days.  I wonder at myself for being willing to live with that inadequate lamp.  I worry about all those millennials living through Covid-19 seclusion in the dark with raw eggs.

Would you have called the electrician or do you ignore stuff like this?

"Electricity"

Back in the early days of electricity, my grandma's small town had a community refrigerator.  Each family contributed to its purchase, and each had a designated area in a chilled room which was the size of a small store.  This fascinates me.  Can you imagine leaving your supper someplace where anyone could touch it, take it, sneeze on it?  I imagine everyone was considerate and cooperative.  Those people knew how to work together and helped each other in a million different ways.  Some people fantasize about living in a castle, I think about the community refrigerator.

I obviously don't want to sacrifice my personal fridge to walk to a store for my food every day.  I just want to experience a gentler time when people are nicer.  Maybe I'm dreaming as much as the people who want to be Cleopatra in a past life.  Maybe people have been and always will be a combination of saints and psychopaths, but I bet they at least acted nice if they needed help to raise a barn?

I was instructed to create a 70s kitchen for this illustration in "Mensa Bulletin" magazine (which printed in the same article with the boy I posted a couple of weeks ago).  This isn't the kitchen I grew up with.  Our kitchen was from the 50s or before.  I aspired to a 70s kitchen.  I wanted a Harvest Gold side by side refrigerator with ice cube and water dispensers in the door, but the multi-generational wisdom of my family is all appliances should be white.  White is always in style, goes with everything, cleans easily, and matches replacement appliances.  This is ultimately sensible and kind of boring.  I admired my friends' colorful kitchens.  I wanted to be in style too.

Suddenly, Harvest Gold was out.  Eyes were rolled when anyone saw it.  So passé!  How long are you going to keep that?!  Something significant clunked in my mind.  If the refrigerator is still good, why replace it?  Because some nameless person decreed you had to spend money?  And it wasn't just the appliances, you had to buy new clothes too, and probably a car.  Throw out everything you own and get new stuff that looks exactly like everyone else's new stuff!  Conform!

Except for a wild college moment when I painted my rusty refrigerator with school bus yellow Rust-Oleum, all my appliances have been white.  Maybe boring practicality is in my DNA.  I still get ice from a tray and water from the tap.  I don't want a Harvest Gold anything.  Certainly not an orange countertop.

Grandma said ignore popular styles.  Buy classics of quality.  They last forever and you'll always look right.  Excellent advice.  A little boring like the white appliances, but very sensible on a budget.  She said the key was to accessorize and dazzle with a sparkling personality.  She was a very smart woman.

Maybe part of her wisdom came from growing up with a communal refrigerator where it was bad taste to show off?  Neighbors had to get along.  If someone else was having a hard time, give them a hand.  Grandma kept her values when she moved to the big city of Akron, Ohio and was happy hobos marked her sidewalk during The Great Depression indicating she'd give them something good to eat.

Grandpa thankfully had a solid job, but maybe Grandma could afford to hand out sandwiches because she didn't follow fashions?