Being a Handyman

BEING A HANDYMAN
By John Ross Harvey

All men, at some point in time
Are asked to change something or fix something
Involving household items they have no
Skills or business attempting to change or fix.
Lighting, at the light itself is simple
Just replace the wires of the old light
With the corresponding wires of the new one.
Simple, black and white, unless there’s red.
Changing a switch however can be
Far more hazardous to your health.
In attempting to change one dimmer switch
And one normal switch in my kitchen and
Living room, I in the process of changing these
Had at one point, my microwave on a switch
And one switch running 3 lights in two different rooms
In an attempt to solve that switch to run only one light
In the right room, I cut power to 3 lights,
A microwave, and a bathroom fan.
This annoying and frustrating situation took about
6 hours of my Saturday to do.
After leaving the breaker off most of the day
While going out on Sunday
Upon our return I set about to ponder what I did
As my wife installed extension cords with lamps
To see what we were cooking in the kitchen
I took the dimmer that was working, apart again
Reinstalled another wire to it
While the breaker was live,
That’s the scary part!
Tested the other switch wires to see which ones
Ran the lights and not the microwave
And reinstalled those wires accordingly
I turned the breaker off, secured the switches to the boxes
And tested them again before putting the plates back on.
In less than 10 minutes, I solved my problem
That had made me want to seriously hurt someone
For the six hours it took me the day before to do it wrong.
Moral to the story?
I AM NOT AN ELECTRICIAN!