My house was wired by drunk monkeys

My mother and I finally guilted my father into coming over to my house and fixing things. It took several weeks of "But Princess' father painted her whole house . . . " whining but he was here yesterday("I don't paint." -- Mr. Crabbypants) . My mother sent him to do something that I had already done, but no matter, I had a pile for him.

After taking him out to lunch, going to the NEW Sam's club for some recreational shopping, and driving out to the "E lot" to look at cars, we arrived at my house and changed some outlets. I can do electrical, sorta, but I don't understand the subtle nuances, like, say, when someone makes an outlet a junction box and what to do if someone does. I tried to rewire a light in the basement and determined that my house had be wired by some drunk monkeys, so I put everything back because I am not a drunk monkey and wasn't seeing the logic. I then called my brother . . . because he does understand drunk monkey wiring and how to fix it, but he was still dealing with Mr. Pukey* and couldn't come to my aid. So really my father needed to come because he taught my brother how to understand wiring, home improvement, and drunken monkeys.

My father thought he was going to "help me with the shelf" which I had already put up two days before. Evidently my mother forgot that they forced me to do all the closets in their house, for two houses. "Well, aren't you glad we did that . . . you now have a life skill . . . " Putting up closet shelves is not a life skill, in my opinion. Anyway, my father came expecting to sit on the couch, with a diet Pepsi in his hand, and yell his own made-up directions to Closetmaid shelving. I made him rewire outlets instead. My father IS very knowlegable, don't think that I doubt that, and at the age of . . . well, his age . . . I suppose he can sit on the couch and tell me how to do things, he's earned it.

When he actually gets hands-on, he talks to the job using his own made-up swear words. He used to use everyday, normally-recognized swear words but switched since his association with Mr. Pukey. Mr. Pukey was not at my house but I guess he just uses the made-up ones all the time now. So he is on the floor yelling at the outlet, about how it is a cockroach because someone made it a junction box. (Come to think of it . . . he had made-up swear words when we were kids. Which is why I didn't recognize REAL swear words when I went to school. Think of the torturing possibilies of finding someone who doesn't know that f#%K is a bad word.)

I was trying to be helpful, so I started on the light. I know how to change light fixtures because I once waited six months for my father (and brother) to come and help and got sick of waiting. ". . . You now have a life skill . . ." comes to mind. The light changing exercise quickly became ME changing the light and my father standing there saying "Do you have it up yet? What about now? How about now?" which was really annoying. I pointed out that I was helping when he was changing outlet, being the good "go-for" that I am and that he could do more of that . . . and he laughed. I longed for the couch/yelling behavior. Well, everyone survived and I have a stair tred. (My father comes over and points out projects that should be finished and then leaves . . . and I do them out of guilt) Oh, and the outlets are good too.


* My nephew somehow caught something awful and couldn't keep food down for two weeks. There were a lot of trips to the doctor and hospital and it was very frustrating. He would look like he was getting better and want food, so they would feed him and then he would vomit again. Z and his mom didn't know the bucket trick (carrying around a bucket or wastepaper basket, evidently his mom was a better person than I was in college) and so for the first day or so there was throwing up on himself, throwing up on the floor, throwing up on the couch. I was there for one epidsode, there was no warning. So my brother had his hands full with Z, who is now nicknamed, unmercifully, Mr. Pukey. (He is better now. Had pizza and everything. No puking, knock wood, for three days)