Perhaps you are familiar with Rube Goldberg and his comically complex "Rube Goldberg Machines" to do simple tasks. Anymore Rube Goldberg has become synonymous with any makeshift repair.
I am a pretty handy guy and I can fix most things, except for electronic stuff, which pretty much no one can fix. Around the house we rarely call a repairman...at least until I have given it a try.
Yesterday I was vacuuming the living room and noticed that the floor lamp in the corner needed to be dusted. I got a dust rag but when I touched the lamp, the top one third, shade and all, flopped over and dangled by the wiring. A piece that connects the shade, bulbs and switches to the base broke in half. The base screws into the bottom of the broken connector and the socket and shade assemblies screw into the top.
I dragged the lamp out of its place and studied the situation. I disassembled the entire thing until I could remove the two halves of the broken connector. It seemed to me that I was going to have trouble finding another connector like the broken one.
This morning I went back to the lighting store where we bought the lamp to see if they could get me a new part. The woman that I spoke with said I would have to bring the lamp to the store so that their repairman could look at it. If the part could be obtained from the manufacturer, they would order it and fix the lamp. She thought it might cost about thirty or forty bucks. Or she offered to sell me a whole new lamp. Since I am soon to be on a fixed income the latter is out of the question.
My good friend Greg organized a lunch to celebrate my retirement today so I ran my dilemma by some other great thinkers in attendance. The consensus was that I might be able to use JB Weld, a super adhesive, to try to fuse the two halves together of the broken part together. I was skeptical.
I spent the afternoon turning the problem over in my head. I have spent the past 25 years working in the engineering field, so I have had plenty of experience figuring stuff out. I thought of several alternative fixes, all in the Rube Goldberg category, before settling on a brilliant solution. Just say it involves two nuts(the kind that go on bolts thank you) and some JB Weld.
I popped into my neighborhood Ace Hardware on the way home and wandered around trying to find what I needed. I always try to find things myself so I don't have to explain my plans, which usually sound loopy, even to me. Unfortunately, I got trapped by a woman who works in the store. She happens to know everything about hardware, a fact I have to keep relearning. She asked me what I needed and I launched into a long explanation about my plan fix my lamp.
She listened patiently and when I was done she said, "Or I could just sell you a 1/4" to 3/8" lamp connector." My irreplaceable part turns out to be a standard lamp part. The replacement looks a bit different than the original, but as she pointed out, when the shade is on you can't see it anyway.
Her parting words were, "Tell the cashier it is ninety-five cents and have a nice day." Smartypants.
Having the actual part seems like cheating, but I reassembled the lamp and it works perfectly. I love Ace Hardware.
Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky
Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor
7 comments:
I don't like to tell them what I'm up to either, because I am almost never using the thing I am buying for what it's supposed to be used for.
Plus, our local guy will often tell me there is just one right way, then he insists I buy the stuff he says I should buy.
I love the little ACE Trading Posts that we have up in the mountains. They serve free coffee and cake there, too! I like looking at everything -- and wondering what is this for?
I hate when people ask what I am up to in an art supply store or a fabric shop. I only buy fabric to make scary things like a black giraffe doll with two necks and heads, and my art project ideas are often not something I'd want to try and justify either.
I really like a good long wander around in hardware stores. Takes me back to the olden days when I would go with my dad and he would look at every single item. But you lucked out with your hardware femme, she was helpful.
I liked how you pondered and came up with your mad scientist lamp fix .
My preferred shopping method is the browse. Since I can't remember a single thing I need, I just walk through the store looking at everything until i see stuff I'm out of. They really don't like that. What they don't like even more is when you tell them that's what you're doing.
Jeez Kurt--you just made me realize ---
everytime I am in a store I say "just browsing!" all cheery and debbie reynolds like so they will leave me alone and not think I'm shifty or anything.
I never thought about the word BROWSE before. it looks weird.
I make lists then forget to bring the list and then fall short on ingredients and so forth
c.
maybe a sneedlet knowswhat happened to that lamp.
them who knows won't tell?
Ha! Ched had the same thought I did. This reminds me of that Brady Bunch episode where Peter breaks the lamp and the boys glue it back together, but then of course it comes apart when Carol touches it later...or maybe Alice rats them out...anyway...
Way to go on the home improvement!
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