Remember when I made the man tape up my light switch so my son didn’t accidentally burn my house to the ground in an electrical fire?

When I woke up this morning, I tried to turn on the light. Because my magical thinking makes an electrical fire less likely when I’m home than when I’m not. A…watched electric doesn’t…fire…or something like that.

Plus I need that light to read my books in the morning.

Books are important.

Flipped the switch.

Nothing happened.

No light.

Walked downstairs. Tried that switch.

Still nothing.

Still no light.

Well, shit. So, obviously the wires up in my ceiling have become disconnected enough to not deliver electricity to the ceiling fan light. And are dangling in there. About to touch each other. And set this whole place ablaze.

And really, I’ve apparently already tempted fate at some point when this happened.

I refuse to replace that outlet cover. Until I get that looked at. Because I will absolutely forget not to try to use that outlet again if I don’t see burn marks on it.

Fine.

I added “fix ceiling fan” to the list.

The F This House List.

The list started when my father, who has apparently never met me, built me a normal emotionally healthy person bookshelf. And then allowed me to use it without restrictions or supervision.

And this happened.

It’s…I mean, if you’re going to have an addiction…

I like to read…

Anyway. My father came and added reinforcements to the shelves. And my mother came and took away my books. And I was able to cross “fix bookshelf” off the F This House List.

But then my floor. You know how when you put a puzzle together. And then try to pick it up. The middle pieces just start folding up on top of themselves?

The kitchen floor is doing something similar. Except it has an unknown substance coming up with it. I think it’s pee. Probably not human pee. Hopefully. Not. Human. Pee.

Adding floors to the list. Those are probably gonna stay on the list for a while. Because do you know what floors cost??

And really. I ain’t fancy. I don’t need real floors to walk on.

Plus, it provides an odd sense of satisfaction to walk down the middle of that floor and feel the puzzle board pieces snap back down under me. I mean, they pop back up. Even worse. But still. Satisfying.

Walked out onto my deck the other night. And heard an audible cracking sound. Which felt incredibly judgy. And offensive.

But also terrifying.

And look. I’m not opposed to just sealing off the backyard of my home and never walking out onto that deck again. Like Rogue suggests. But I’ve got pets. And Smart Child’s dog stays with me often. And if his precious pretty princess goes crashing through my deck. I have no doubt the child will sue me for everything I have.

Which is a slowly deteriorating house. That will actually probably catch fire before it has a chance to collapse. So really he’d just be suing me for the insurance money.

Ok. Replace deck on the list.

It’s cool. I just have to walk softly until I can work floors and deck into the budget.

But this ceiling fan. That probably shouldn’t wait. Because electric fire feels pretty dramatic. And will probably happen at night. When I need to sleep.

But hey. I’ve got this home warranty policy thingy. And guess what’s covered under that policy? Ceiling fans!!

Sweet.

So I log in to the website and click on service request.

$125 service fee feels doable. To keep my home from burning to the ground.

So I type in my credit card information. And in a rare moment of wisdom. Just before hitting the submit button. I think, wait. Let me try these two switches one more time. I’d feel real stupid if I paid $125 for an electrician to come show me how to turn a light switch on. I mean, it is pretty confusing when two switches control the same light. Maybe I just keep canceling one switch out by flipping the other.

But no. More switch flipping didn’t solve the issue.

Well, at least I’m not just stupid.

Lemme go finish this request.

And on my way back over to my computer, as I’m passing by the ceiling fan, I just happen to reach up. Not even thinking I should. Just pure homeowner instinct. I reach up. And pull the ceiling fan light chain.

And there was light.

I mean…

Ok…

…lemme just exit out of this website…and cross that one back off the list…

We can just pretend that one never happened…

So, really just new floors and deck are on the F This House List. Which isn’t awful. Unless we add “new car” to the list. Since she is becoming increasingly resistant to starting.

But I probably can’t reasonably blame the house for that one.

And I work from home. So how much do I really need reliable transportation?

Incidentally, when my mom took my books from me, she found this bookmark in one of them.

That was written by the person who requested this blog post. Because he got tired of seeing “I Lost My Light” at the top of my page. And feeling like he needed to call some sort of hotline for me.

I gave him a choice of topics. He chose this one. Probably because he was expecting to see video of me failing miserably at building a new deck by myself.

Joke’s on him.

I can’t even afford to build a new deck.