WHAT is the point of ANYTHING? Why do we exist in this meaningless, vain universe!? Why? Why I ask you? Dammit, WHY?
Various such questions and accompanying epithets nudged my sensitive nature over the weekend when everything golden that I touched turned to dust and ashes in my fingertips. No, I had not suddenly developed a rather macabre superpower although I DID wish for super-human strength so that I could pussy-whip the "electrician" into a bleeding mass with my bare hands.
Last week, I over-enthusiastically pulled the light cord on my ceiling fan/light and the cord broke, leaving me bathed in permanent unnatural light. The only way to prevent increasing my carbon footprint (and the risk of fire) was to take the bulbs out.
So I called an electrician who had been recommended by my mother. Well, I do like to try to do things myself to save myself the hassle of waiting in for someone, but there was no way I would deal with electricity myself, especially after I offered to help mum do her lights last year and got stung by quite a few volts, which she thought was funny.
The conversation went thusly:
"Hello - is that Barry?"
"Yes, who's asking?"
"Oh, my name is ********* and my mother ******* recommended you to me as you recently did some electrical work for her."
"What do you want?"
"Well, I've broken my ceiling light and I cannot replace it myself - it is on permanently and there is no light switch on the wall for me to turn it off."
"Can't you use the light switch on the wall instead?"
"No, there isn't one. It's a ceiling fan/light and I pulled the light cord too hard."
"Well I can't fix it."
"Oh?"
"No, the part's too small. It's gone. You can't fix it. What, did you expect me to fix it?"
At this point, part of me wanted to say:
"What the fling flang jang did you think I was ringing you for, you butt-wipe? You're a bloody electrician, aren't you? Of course I wanted you to fix it! For the love of mercy!"
However, I did not. I merely replied in a clipped tone worthy of Helen Mirren:
"Yes, actually, I did."
"Well I can't. If you buy a new light from Homebase I can fix that for you. Go out, buy the light and I will fix it for you this afternoon."
I thanked him, and decided to take his advice. After all, mum had said he was a bit old and crotchety and I thought maybe he was not used to phone conversations or had not had any lessons in basic civility.
However, a tense and fraught trip to homebase later (during which I argued with my mother, fell over on the bus and got chatted up by some bloke while his wife was standing in the queue in front - ew! Icky, icky man!) I called him.
"The person you are calling is not accepting calls from this number. The person you are calling is not accepting calls from this number."
EITHER he has the best sense of dark humour in the world, like the Cable Guy, or he's a complete and utter freak. I DO NOT STALK ELECTRICIANS.
53 comments:
I DO NOT STALK ELECTRICIANS.
Quite right, too. One must have standards, observe certain hierarchical protocols and so forth. Stalking sparks would be decidedly non-U (not to mention unwise for a creature of the deep end. Water is a rather good conductor, as you may know.)
The only person I ever (very diffidently) stalked, long time ago now, went on to achieve dizzy heights in publishing and TV, so my quality-control instincts were spot on, at least. As it turned out, my compulsively drooping round to h** rooms (student days) to see if this person was in turned out to be for the best (given the time-frame on Paracetamol and liver-damage...and no, it had nothing at all to do with me, I was a peripheral figure at best in that little drama.)
Good lord woman
That flat of yours sounds like a death trap.
You dont need an electrician you need a husband , as no doubt you mother informed you.
If you have the fitting its dead easy, turn off the mains, get up some step ladders, unscew the old one and then bolt the new one on , then turn on the mains. Get yourself an mains testing screwdriver as well ,also remember to turn of your PC.
Another tip , it helps if you dont do DIY whilst pissed , the Hitch has found this to his cost many times over.
Perhaps he was intimidated by your unpronounceable name.
"If you have the fitting its dead easy, turn off the mains, get up some step ladders, unscew the old one and then bolt the new one on , then turn on the mains"...
Hitch! The light is really heavy... I can't hold it on my own :( If my late uncle were here he'd fix it for me, as he was a brilliant electrician.
Verge: I do have standards - only celebrities of a certain age should be stalked. Like Gary Oldman. Mmmmmmmmm.... purrs contentedly to herself. But you are right - electricity and water do not mix. Fried Mermaid would not be nice.
Gimme - I trust you are referring to ********** and not to my actual real name, which is also unpronounceable and which, if you knew it, would mean that my identity has been shot. DARN IT!
well you could try
handyman.co.uk
A friend of my ma reccomended them.
If you are in west london I know somebody reliable, and if he cant make he will know somebody who can.
btw, this isnt a cunning plan to find out where you live ,I just know what a pain in the arse it is finding a decent builder, and how many of them will take the piss out of a woman customer if they can get away with it.
what do you expect really? Some of these people are complete sharks he probably reads your blog and thought you might stalk him or set you bat-eared cat on him
Hoe did you pull it out in the first place?
how*
I just pulled the cord too hard... actually I was not expecting to leap out of bed so quickly and I sort of used the cord as a means to stop myself falling over.
nonny
you got it right with HOE
maybe I should have typed
Wid Hoe
Anon 11.42am : Mermaid may like to meet a shark and if she stalked him he could just eat her !
Swissidle the sparky says:
Repairing a "ceiling fan/light" is like making love to a beautiful man.
First, get up close. You might need a contraption to do this; in which case, make sure that full erection is achieved before putting weight on to it.
Second, ensure that you respect the electricity surrounding you and take care to avoid putting fingers into inappropriate holes.
Third, ensure the bulbous appendage is not too hot; blowing on it will cool it sufficiently to rest it in the palm of one hand while attending to the unfinished job.
etc
Trubes - tis true, sharks are another natural enemy, so one must carry a plentiful stabilo bros pouch of staple guns.
Idle - thanks.. I think... But will sparks fly? And what will happen if the plug is pulled too soon?
I'll come and give you a hand Mermaid - I fitted my own light* all on my own!
*a really simple one with two wires and two screws...
My own stationery knowledge is sparse, I admit, but surely Stabilo BOSS...
Get a torch and switch off all your electricity then...do something fixy with the ceiling...old cranky electricians aren't the only fruit you know! Let your fingers...do the walking...sorry. I can't help you there at all.
He had probably already charged some woodentop £500 to change a fuse and had finished for the day.
OK the early indicator that all was not going to end happily in that little tale were the fateful words "reccomended by my mother".............
Goodness, you're a DIY disaster area.
But quite wise to not touch the lecky unless confident. How did you break the chord ? Have you been putting on weight ???
Electro: If Mermaid is in "Pod" there could be shoals of little Mermaids swimming around the pond! A few, young fresh, Mermen may be nice tho`, particularly for some of us "laydee" swimmers !
Merms,
Bugger all this, just tell me where you live and I'll come round and fix it for you!
Blimey, you have to put up with all this to get nowhere don't you!
Like it then years, old pages for the useless. Brat and thats it pyramic.
Nothing quite like Ohm, Sweet Ohm.
Turn off your fuses at the main panel. Then disconnect the light fixture and put a new one in. Then turn on the main fuse panel and lots of light.
Call me and I will tell you all about Kitty in my Jeans.
No, but you do have a habit of stalking waiters, dustbin men and bus drivers. Seriously, you need to chill - maybe a nice relaxing bout of baby seal clubbing? Although watching baby seals dancing to 50 Cent and R. Kelly is just weird. Much like you, my crazy fish lady friend.
Aren't we all swish with our "elek-trissy-tea" and our lights. Laa-di-dah! Back in my days we used to use candles By Gum! Candles made from tallow that we rendered ourselves from beef-fat or unclaimed bodies from the morgue. (And we tied onions to our belts...which was the style at the time)
Nice to hear your thoughts, True Blue - I'm not entirely sure about mixing water with electricity though.
Infact with a name like mine you would have expected me to have been more useful. Having done many electrical repairs around my home I can at least say I'm still aLIVE - of electricians their rates certainly bring me down to EARTH with a bump and as for their usefulness with regard to minor faults I'm entirely NEUTRAL.
Bzzz - Electro !
ED - "I'll come and give you a hand Mermaid - I fitted my own light* all on my own!"
... I might take you up on that one, fellow Lambeth-ian. Although this is a complicated affair with four fan blades and three light fittings.
Scrobelene
Welcome, and thank you for your sympathy! Indeed, the past couple of months have issued DIY disasters - toilet seats, blinds, cupboards. Now lights. Ho-hum.
Old Tarf said...
Nothing quite like Ohm, Sweet Ohm.
Daddy!! You're back!! That was a sweet pun by the way :) Will call you this evening xxx
Lippy - "OK the early indicator that all was not going to end happily in that little tale were the fateful words "reccomended by my mother"..
how true... I should never listen to advice
Mu Tai makes a good point , i agree 100 %!
All electricians and builders are freaks , they dont live in the real world like the rest of us....the only thing making living worth while this week(now that Big Brother has ended) is the sainted Nigella back on the BBC !
Lambeth you say?
Well I was going to offer to bolt your light to the ceiling but I never go south of the river.
Agree with Beast , most builders are **** (In London it rhymes with ants)
They have it far too *******(rhymes with quacking) easy.
Come on woman you supposedly have all these potential boyfriends and a current "flame" why arent any of those up a ladder for you ?
I haven't any potential boyfriends, only potential flames... and they're going cold. I've NEVER successfully got a bloke to do something for me. I think I should stop asking nicely and just shout "Fix the f**king thing"
I never get normal blokes who do normal things like fix things. I had a wardrobe door, the upper hinge of which was broken,but the three bottom ones were okay. I suggested to the recent ex that he take the third one down and put it on the top hole.
He held the door for a couple of seconds, then looked round at me.
"It's broken" he said, doing his little boy lost face.
"I know, that's why we're swapping hinges"
Now the door is still off, and there are two broken hinges.
Given that OLd Tarf himself managed to set himself on fire, instead of the bonfire, it seems obvious that to do anything vaguely DIY-oriented, I have to do it myself or pay another.
Better let everyone know that Old Tarf is really your father, Mermaid. You wouldn't want people to think you're the kind of girl who calls her male friends 'Daddy'.
I dont do DIY , but I just do MAN
That means that I can look at problems and solve them without bursting into tears.
As to asking , you shouldnt need to, just hint a man will automatically do it.
As to your old Dad setting himself on fire .
Oh please do tell (+:
My Grandfather once ruined bonfire night for about 50 people , he took charge and put the communal fireworks in one big box , big mistake , he lit a catherine wheel , set off a few rockets then a spark hit the box , then the lot went off in one go. Nobody was hurt but from then on it was organised bonfires or nothing.
After the initial terror the adults all found it funny , we children less so, although there is a certain joy to recalling having seen my grandfather running around in circles panicking after having just F**** up my bonfire night.
"As to your old Dad setting himself on fire. Oh please do tell (+:"
Old Tarf/Dad (your cover is blown by the way, everyone knows you are the MerKing of Mermedonia. By the way, you now have 100 children).... Please write a blog about the time you set fire to yourself. It never fails to amuse me....
Its crap when things break and you're a woman and you can't fix things. I had some bloke around to service my boiler. He arrived with a black eye after a heavy weekend and managed to set my boiler to meltdown. Only £50 but another £60 to have him come back and fix the wrong part to it which meant it worked whilst he was there. He told me I needed a new thermostat.
Five months later (it was summer and I had an immersion heater) I called some heating engineers in, not some brat with a black eye and a corgi certificate (yes, he had one) but a body builder and his hippy side kick who had it sorted in a trice. And they posted me a reasonable bill. Bloody civilised.
Bummer of a title, the Merkin of Macedonia. Tell him he was brave to keep it.
I have a firework tale to tell, but it's so long I'll have to put it on my own blog. Pity, as that means only three people will hear about it.
lilith, our plumber always winks when he says "I'm here to service the boiler".
Does yours?
No, Idle, he looks very big and neckless and his biceps bulge out of his t-shirt in an unatural way. He doesn't do interpersonals. That's what he's got the hippy side-kick for.
Or the British Gas advert where the engineer says to the lady "I'll just go an' check yer back passage." 'strue :-(
Lilith - "he looks very big and neckless and his biceps bulge out of his t-shirt in an unatural way"
he sounds perfect. Does he do electricals too?
It's only when you live alone that you realise the practicalities of having a bloke about the house, why did nobody bother to point this out to us, I was under the illusion a man’s sole purpose was to give pleasure and make me tea afterwards. Had I have known the there was so much more to them I would have trapped a squealer years ago!
Idle: Time to start worrying, is when, the plumber says, "I`ve come to service the "old boiler" Guv" winks at Mrs Idle, and she, in turn, blushes furiously !
lilith
all body builders are if not gay so into themselves that they care not a jot about pleasing a woman.
They also all have small cocks.
Mr Hitch has observed this in the showers.
Trube, glad you got the gist of my 3.37 post.
Hitch is almost certainly right about fake-tanned muscle-bound baby oil fetishists. Hung like chaffinches, the lot of them.
Hitch's body building experience - if you're not a body builder then what on earth are you doing in muscle-gym showers ???
A mate of mine was changing in a gym in Catford when who should walk in ??? Lenny McLean - one of the hardest bare-nuckle fighters to have walked the planet. Lenny looks my mate (who is naked) up and down and says "Phwoar ! Nice arse !" Joking and deliberately trying to discomfort him of course.
kev I think that would scare most of us.
I dont go to the gym anymore(it shows) just do the canadian airforce work out.
Never into all that muscle mary stuff, just toned (im not)
I love beer more than steroids
Yeah, there comes a time when men decide to stop hankering after a six-pack and go straight for a barrel instead
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Mermaid
It is my pleasure pillow.
I can still see my feet and Mr Happy plus the tops of my thighs.
although if I were to sit under a tree in the Congo eating bananas no doubt some bastard would shoot me , turn my hands into ashtrays and sell me for bush meat.
You wax me and I will fix your light for you.
fair swap?
There's a time when women give up on the diets, eat chocolate all day and drag their tits along the ground. They also sit with their legs wide appart at bus stops showing off their bearded kebabs - but no-one wants to look, they're past it. Showing off all they once had. Why didn't they show off in their prime instead ? Funny old world, ain't it !
EK - "They also sit with their legs wide appart at bus stops showing off their bearded kebabs"... that happened at an office meeting with one of our directors. Really not nice first thing in the morning. At least there wasn't any noticeable sproutage.
all depends whose "kebab" it is.
All electricians are out to get as much money for as little as they can do, the merkins
What is with the use of this word Merkins? Ever since the Hitch used it on me blog, everyone has been using it! It's been my word of the week!
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