We now have coffee in the house, and yes that was me you heard singing the Hallelujah Chorus this morning. Allow me to digress for a moment, but have you ever spelled a word so badly, ie: my first attempt at hallelujah, that the spell check has no idea what it is ?
Anyway, I have coffee, life is good and I send my husband off on a mission to replace the fluorescent bulb in the light above my computer. I do suggest that he take the old bulb with him for comparison purposes, but then it wouldn't be a challenge, and my husband does so like a challenge. Ten minutes later, when I am up to my elbows in laundry, the phone rings. It is my husband, "This is going to throw you into a tailspin " he begins, my heart starts racing and my first thought is, he's crashed my van, but fortunately nothing so terrible. He is calling from Lowes, the hardware store. "Can you dismantle the light and tell me what's written on the bulb?" he asks. Of course, like I dismantle lights everyday. "Oh, and try not to break it " he adds. Very gingerly, I remove the light cover and take out the bulb, however there is nothing written on it, I can see where something was, but it has rubbed off. I explain that to my husband. "There has to be something written on it somewhere" he insists. "Look again". I repeat, but more slowly this time, to make sure he gets it. "I am looking at it, and there is nothing written on it". "OK then, you'll just have to measure it" "Fine" I reply. "What do you want me to measure, just the glass part, or from each end of the metal tips, or should I include the prongs as well ?" I can tell he is getting testy by this point, "Just the glass part" he said tersely. I do and it''s 40 cm. "OK what is that in inches ?" he asked. Are you kidding me, how the hell do I know, I don't have inches on my ruler, I tell him to divide 40 by 2 1/2 or better still, come home and get the damn bulb so he can match it up.
Twenty minutes later he is home again, and the bulb - you've guessed it - is the wrong size. Too short by about 10 cm. Apparently he told the idiot in Lowes what he wanted and the idiot gave him said bulb. So now I have my knickers in a knot. "Why would you listen to the idiot at Lowes instead of me? I told you it was 40cm." Rob insists it didn't have the measurements on the package (hard to believe). Then why didn't the idiot at Lowes measure it ? Apparently he didn't have a tape measure. How the hell can you work in a hardware store the size of Lowes and not have access to a f***ing tape measure ? But somehow this ends up being my fault, because according to Rob, he grew up with inches and if I had given him the measurement in inches instead of centimeters he would have been able to tell the difference between 12" and 8". Like I haven't heard that line before.
So Rob is on his way back to Lowes, this time with the old bulb. Before he leaves, he sees me busily typing away, and is immediately suspicious. "You're not blogging about this are you ? You're going to make me look like an idiot." No, I'm not. The only idiot is the person at Lowes who sends him home with the wrong item. Rob's only crime throughout this is not listening to me, and I am sure this is true of husbands everywhere. And that is why I will probably never run out of material for my blog.
The saga continues, according to the next idiot my husband spoke to at Lowes, the light bulb we need has been discontinued. This means that the second light fixture that Rob had just bought in his first foray to the store, is now obsolete too. The helpful idiot suggests another type of light fixture, so Rob purchases two, one to replace mine, and the other for Sid's room. When he opened the package at home, what to his surprise, the light fixture contained the exact same bulb - now discontinued. What started as a blog about my husband not listening, has now become a rant about idiots and the hardware store that employs them all.
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