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Jun. 5th, 2009 07:27 pmSo the a week ago Thursday, my mom mentioned that the next thing she wanted to "do" to the house was get some ceiling fans for the bedrooms, specifically mine, which is the hottest room in the entire house (and yes, I've been kicking myself for that ever since we moved here). But whatever, the point is that the way she said it implied that it might not happen for a while, possibly not until next year, and she was just mentioning it in passing.
By Saturday morning, however, this passing whim has somehow transformed into us needing ceiling fans RIGHT NOW, and so she dragged my sister and me to Home Depot to buy some ceiling fans. This is when we discovered that Home Depot charges a $100 per fan installation fee, and my mom was like, "Screw that, we can totally put them in ourselves!" I pointed out that when my dad installed a ceiling fan in my parents' room back when I was a kid, it took him like, two days and a lot of fake swearing, which didn't seem to bode well for us. My mom explained that this was because my dad had also had to install the wiring in their room, but our rooms already have wiring, so it would be SO MUCH EASIER and we could TOTALLY DO IT. Which I knew was a total lie, but I also knew that my mom was never going to fork over $300 dollars to have some professional do something that she was convinced she could do herself. Plus, I like to think of this as proof that she hasn't turned into a totally useless housewife quite yet, and that's cool. (It could also just be proof that she's getting just as tightfisted and stupidly stubborn about money as my grandpa, but the other one is more positive, so we're going with it.)
Anyway, it was supposed to be cooler on Wednesday, and since you have to turn of the electricity to install these sorts of things and that means no AC, we decided to install them Wednesday morning, starting with my sister's room/the TV room, which is the smallest and second-hottest room in the house, so we figured it would be the best one to test with. Admittedly, it did not take two days to install the first fan, but it still took four and a half hours, a panic attack (from me, I don't like heights, especially ladders, OKAY?), and wiring complications (because who needs men when you have women to not read directions and fuck things up?) that could totally have been avoided if people had just listened to me. Then my mom had to go to work, and we decided that doing all the fans in one day had been overly optimistic, and we'd do the other two later in the week. We were proud of ourselves, and all was well, though personally I still think we could all have been saved some physical and mental distress if we'd just payed the hundred bucks to have someone do it for us, but what do I know? (I also had to spend that whole evening getting advice from my mom and step-dad about all the different careers I could have with my "mechanically-inclined mind" because apparently being able to read directions in an instruction manual {that is totally written for morons because those are the only people who would think to install these things themselves} makes you totally qualified to fly fighter planes or whatever. Look, I don't even know.)
Owing to everyone's schedules, we didn't get around to installing the other fans until this morning. My mom was at work, so my sisters and I (really just my sisters, because after spending most of Wednesday afternoon shaking, I have concluded that it's better for everyone {read: me} if I never get on a ladder again) set to work installing the fan in my room. Aside from some issues with a screw, it went way more smoothly and quickly than the first one, and we were all congratulating each other proudly when we turned the electricity back on.
Which is when we discovered that the fan DIDN'T WORK. Which, you know, totally would happen to me.
Several hours and phone calls later, my mom and sister have tried everything they can think of (including "soldering" something or something? I don't know, me and my mechanical mind have no idea what was going on up there), and I'm sitting in my sauna of a bedroom that not only doesn't have a working ceiling fan but now also doesn't have a working light. Because, you know, we tore it out. To install the ceiling fan. Which doesn't work. Which totally would happen to me.
To top it off, my mom and sisters installed the third fan in like, half an hour, and it's happily twirling away.
I hate my life.
By Saturday morning, however, this passing whim has somehow transformed into us needing ceiling fans RIGHT NOW, and so she dragged my sister and me to Home Depot to buy some ceiling fans. This is when we discovered that Home Depot charges a $100 per fan installation fee, and my mom was like, "Screw that, we can totally put them in ourselves!" I pointed out that when my dad installed a ceiling fan in my parents' room back when I was a kid, it took him like, two days and a lot of fake swearing, which didn't seem to bode well for us. My mom explained that this was because my dad had also had to install the wiring in their room, but our rooms already have wiring, so it would be SO MUCH EASIER and we could TOTALLY DO IT. Which I knew was a total lie, but I also knew that my mom was never going to fork over $300 dollars to have some professional do something that she was convinced she could do herself. Plus, I like to think of this as proof that she hasn't turned into a totally useless housewife quite yet, and that's cool. (It could also just be proof that she's getting just as tightfisted and stupidly stubborn about money as my grandpa, but the other one is more positive, so we're going with it.)
Anyway, it was supposed to be cooler on Wednesday, and since you have to turn of the electricity to install these sorts of things and that means no AC, we decided to install them Wednesday morning, starting with my sister's room/the TV room, which is the smallest and second-hottest room in the house, so we figured it would be the best one to test with. Admittedly, it did not take two days to install the first fan, but it still took four and a half hours, a panic attack (from me, I don't like heights, especially ladders, OKAY?), and wiring complications (because who needs men when you have women to not read directions and fuck things up?) that could totally have been avoided if people had just listened to me. Then my mom had to go to work, and we decided that doing all the fans in one day had been overly optimistic, and we'd do the other two later in the week. We were proud of ourselves, and all was well, though personally I still think we could all have been saved some physical and mental distress if we'd just payed the hundred bucks to have someone do it for us, but what do I know? (I also had to spend that whole evening getting advice from my mom and step-dad about all the different careers I could have with my "mechanically-inclined mind" because apparently being able to read directions in an instruction manual {that is totally written for morons because those are the only people who would think to install these things themselves} makes you totally qualified to fly fighter planes or whatever. Look, I don't even know.)
Owing to everyone's schedules, we didn't get around to installing the other fans until this morning. My mom was at work, so my sisters and I (really just my sisters, because after spending most of Wednesday afternoon shaking, I have concluded that it's better for everyone {read: me} if I never get on a ladder again) set to work installing the fan in my room. Aside from some issues with a screw, it went way more smoothly and quickly than the first one, and we were all congratulating each other proudly when we turned the electricity back on.
Which is when we discovered that the fan DIDN'T WORK. Which, you know, totally would happen to me.
Several hours and phone calls later, my mom and sister have tried everything they can think of (including "soldering" something or something? I don't know, me and my mechanical mind have no idea what was going on up there), and I'm sitting in my sauna of a bedroom that not only doesn't have a working ceiling fan but now also doesn't have a working light. Because, you know, we tore it out. To install the ceiling fan. Which doesn't work. Which totally would happen to me.
To top it off, my mom and sisters installed the third fan in like, half an hour, and it's happily twirling away.
I hate my life.
