I’m not a mechanic. I can’t fix things. If I had had the opportunity to choose my talents before I was born I probably wouldn’t have chosen it anyway. Can you imagine choosing a talent with an ending that sounds like ‘ick’! Not impressive at all.

But as my life has progressed there have been many times when I wished I had the talent of a mechanic. I was reminded of that fact this spring as our dining room fluorescent light began misbehaving.

It began to hum. The hum became louder and louder as the days passed. Someone more knowledgeable then I said that the light’s ballast was going bad. I still don’t know what a ballast is but they were right because several days ago the humming stopped and the fluorescent lights ceased to shine. I assumed our ballast had just passed away. 🙁

As I stood looking up at the lifeless light I was forced to face my mechanical inadequacies. So what did I do? I grabbed a phone book and looked up an electrician’s number. This was very humbling because the electrician I was about to call was a past student of mine. He would discover that his ex-biology teacher knew nothing about electrical repairs.

What a relief when the phone rang and the answering machine picked up. I babbled some incoherent dribble about needing someone to repair my non-functioning fluorescent light. I should have broken down and sobbed a little to get a little sympathy and a quick response from my past student.

Several days went by and my ‘past student’ electrician never called back. I hope he wasn’t holding a grudge from a low grade I may have given him years ago. Now what do I do?

I went to YouTube and looked up how to change a ballast in a fluorescent light. I found a wonderful video giving very clear directions on replacing a ballast. There were yellow wires to cut, red wires to cut, blue wires to cut, a ground wire, and what made me most nervous a ‘hot’ wire to deal with too.

I could just picture the headlines in our local paper next week, “Shocking News, Retired Teacher Fries Himself Changing A Ballast”.

What to do, what to do? I decided to visit our local hardware store and check on what ballasts they had on hand. If they had the correct replacement perhaps I could attempt following the YouTube’s directions and replace the ballast myself.

What a brilliant idea it turned out to be. I didn’t even get to the ballast section when the clerk showed me the latest in lighting. It was a LED ceiling fixture that promised on the box up to 45 years of vivid LED light! Also I would be saving up to $417 when compared to incandescent lights. However they weren’t real clear on how many years it would take to make this tremendous savings.

What really was exciting was if the light truly lasted 45 years I would be around 119 years old when it expired. I would probably be in a home somewhere feeling very sad about my recently deceased LED light. Actually I think we would both be in the same situation…..deceased! 🙂

I waited a day hoping my electrician would return my call. My phone never rang.

Perhaps the LED light would be easier to replace and there wouldn’t be the numerous colored wires to cut and reattach. The only way I could find out was to buy the light, open the box and read the directions. Would it be a job for a non-mechanic to accomplish?

I actually drove around the block the next day, circling the hardware store several times before I had the courage to enter the store and make the big purchase. Finally I bought the LED light, returned home and with shaky hands opened the box, took out the installation directions and began reading.

I immediately discovered there would be only three wires to attach. That was good news. I read and re-read  the directions several times. Each part of the light was identified by a letter and each step in the operation had a number. Keeping the letters and numbers straight in my head as I read the directions was a challenge.

There were no directions on how to take the old fluorescent light down but using my hand-dandy screwdriver I was able to get the job done. My wife Kathie used the handle of a broom to hold the one end of the fluorescent light that I had freed snuggly against the ceiling while I removed the screw from the other end.

Once the final screw was removed the fluorescent light proceeded to fall on my head as I teetered on the stepladder. With Kathie’s help we lowered the old light to the dining room floor.

I reread the attaching process directions of the LED light again. I felt ready to chance the attachment operation. I followed the directions perfectly and very soon the light was secured on the ceiling.

Now came the big test. I would turn the light switch on and hopefully see the LED fixture glowing brightly and to begin the process of immediately saving  us money. As I prepared to turn on the light switch I noticed Kathie duck behind the recliner. She said she was looking for her glasses. I’m thinking she wasn’t real confident with my non-mechanical workmanship! 🙂 Was she expecting an explosion?

As I reached for the light switch I’m sure I heard music. Hopefully it wasn’t from the Heavenly gates opening to welcome me home! Actually it turned out to be a musical commercial on the television.

So with a great deal of relief I hit the switch and guess what? The room was filled with the brilliant glow of LED lights. It was a non-mechanic’s miracle!

It has been a week of tension, worry and  along with problem solving struggles. But you know when it’s all said and done it was kind of fun! Do you think I’m too old to go back to school and get my electrician license? 🙂

Until next time.