The Light
Breaks
And the
light shineth in darkness;
and the
darkness comprehended it not.
-- John 3:19
I was in Graduation Party Panic,
getting ready for our third high-school graduation party. I was having all
kinds of minor fix-ups done at our house to beautify it for the hordes of
guests who were coming.
None of them would ever notice the slightest
improvement. They would buzz in, in a cloud of dust, pack themselves in around
the buffet on the kitchen island like locusts descending on the North Forty, consume
everything in sight, including the paper plates and napkins, and then ascend,
buzz back out to the next party.
There would be nary an appraising eye on any of
the new furniture, paint job, new staircase, or any other high-dollar but
basically useless home décor. But I didn't care. I was going to keep up with
the Joneses regardless of the fact that the Joneses could care less.
So, to pointlessly get ready for the party,
anyway, I called an electrician, because a friend had suggested we put in some
dimmer switches on the main level and some festive garden lighting in the back
yard. Of course, dimmer switches would just make it even more improbable that
anyone would notice the lovely, pointless improvements. And festive garden
lighting would just pull people outside, even further from the lovely,
pointless improvements.
But I was determined to get my money's worth
SOMEHOW. So . . . I knew that whenever you have a high-paid tradesperson on
your property, you should multitask. You know, put up with no hot water in the
shower for four years until you also have a burst pipe, a dripping faucet, a
loose gasket and a stuffed potty, and can get it all done at once.
So . . . as long as the high-paid electrician
was here, I showed him the patio low-voltage spotlights. The original
electrician who had put them in a few years before had suggested that we put
them on a timer, not a switch, to save money. We could let them cycle on for a
few hours every night, right when we would be grilling out and so forth.
But we usually grill out before it gets dark. We
only need light back there a few times a year, for parties and so forth. It
seemed wasteful to have those lights coming on night after night after night.
So, in my technological innocence and naivete, I
brought the timer over to the electrician. I asked anxiously how much it would
cost to convert the system to a switch.
He paused as if stunned, and stared
at me. Then he stared at the timer. Then he stared back at me. Then, his face
softening with just a tinge of patronization, he smiled gently and unplugged
the timer.
Bingo! Same thing as adding a switch. All I had
to do to NOT have light, was unplug it!!!
But had I THOUGHT of that?
Nooooooooo.
It gets worse. The same friend told
about some cute little landscape lights that take two "D" batteries and run for
six months. They were about $22 apiece, and our back yard alongside our back
driveway was darker than a Black Hole, so I splurged on eight of them.
The night before the party, I put two brand-new
"D" batteries in the first light. But it didn't come on. Hmm. Maybe I put the
batteries in wrong. I checked. No. Hmm. Maybe they marked the battery position
wrong. I reversed them. Still no go.
GEEZ! I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS CRUDDY
MERCHANDISE THEY SELL THESE DAYS!!! I set that first light aside, and tried
another one. It was the same story. What junk! And with the party tomorrow
night! Just my luck!
I carried both lights out to the
back yard to show my beloved, yelling angrily about the terrible ripoff . . . but
miraculously, mysteriously, both lights started flickering.
The light broke. Ohhhh. It wasn't
broken. It was an automatic deal. It was LIGHT, in the kitchen, so they DIDN'T
light up. It was DARK, outside. So they DID.
The lights were smarter than I was. They knew to
shine only in the dark. They were working correctly. It was my BRAIN that
wasn't.
Praise the Lord! I saw the light . . . a little
late, but I saw it! †
