Thoughts in the USA

“Should I call 911?”, I asked with dismay.
“No”, said John, sounding utterly offended.
(Well, he’s right.
.If we haven’t called an electrician, why would we call the firefighters?
.Are we really that wimpy? Don’t we have hands?).

- - - And the smoke keeps on going with admirable diligence.

John looked again at the epicenter of the happening, and demanded, “Bring me a bucket!”
I galloped to the garage and came back with the nice blue bucket.
“Should I fill it with water?”, I asked with sheer and inexcusable retardation, and then it occurred to me that I’m actually quite intelligent on a daily basis, and added “but wait, we cannot spill water on electricity-induced fire!”.
“No, no water”, said one very astounded John (who also had a vague recollection of marrying an intelligent being), “just the bucket. Empty. And fetch the fire-extinguisher”.
(Aha – and only then I recalled the existence of those lovely red creatures that until that moment were just hanging out in the closet…).
I fetched.

He sprayed with all his might, hurried down the ladder, coughed heartily, went back up, sprayed again, came down, up, spray, down, cough - - -
And then filled the bucket with a blackish smoldering thingy, handed it me, and my job was to run to the backyard (while yelping “Aw! Awwwwwwwwww! It’s hot!!!”), empty the steamy contents onto the grass, hose it down with plenty of water, and then rush back and hand him the empty bucket, which was filled again and again and again with this brownish thingy.
This thingy, I have later learned, is in fact the insulation, which basically looks like mesh of paper/fabric/potatoes (probably because that’s what it’s made of…), and does not exactly seem like the stuff that would stop fire…
Personally, it seems to me that the insulation and the fire actually got along very well together, until we caught them red-handed, exposed the fiery romance and ruined their chance to a more fervent affair.

And so we worked, John on the ladder in a heroic pose with his steaming head up in the fervid attic and moi running between him and the rainy backyard (in the dark, in the rain, alone, barefoot, uphill, both ways) with buckets abundant with singed insulation, while keeping the phone in my peripheral vision – as it was carrying the promise of red-helmeted heroes in their shiny red fire truck that would have brought a lot of inetrest to all the neighbors and provided lots of discussions.
The bucket, by the way, is now adorned with an unforgettable scar, as the hot embers that were relocated into it must have been too burning an insult, and thus melted the bottom, which is made of rigidly stiff plastic.

Four hours later, the house still smelled like July 4th, but it was over.
John went out to smoke and relax (despite my claim that he has been smoking enough up there, though somewhat passively), and we were both exhausted, but much more clamed down, as we understood what has happened.
(And now you’ll realize that I did not tell the lamp tale in vain…).

That board that John uprooted to find the fire was reinforced into place with nails.
While John was working on his thesis about the reason for the malfunctioning of the lamp, he went up to the attic several times, and at some point realized that this board was a bit loose, so he whacked it back in place.

Apparently, that mighty smack has shoved one of the nails straight into the heart of the electric wire connecting to the light switch. No idea why nothing’s happened immediately, but after several days (perhaps due to the rain or the humidity or the fact that I have left the light on for several hours, or maybe due to those aliens), the wire heated up and created a short (which is the explanation to the light-on-while-switch-is-off magic).

And the best part – out of the warmth and coziness, was born Fred, the baby ember, that started to graze on the beam under the board, and to penetrate into the insulation, which - despite my slander, is apparently quite fire-proof, as it kept little Fred in its emberyonic state (pun intended…) and did not let it develop into a flame, at least during the initial stage.
So yes, a terrifyingly impressive part of the neighboring ceiling beam was burnt, and a vast amount of insulation has courageously sacrificed itself (4 packed buckets, which is a lot!), yet the damage is, in fact, negligible.

Basically, it’s oceans of luck that we were home and did not go to dine out, and that’s probably because John went for a haircut after work.

And no doubt John (who from now on shall be called ‘John The Maccabee’, due to the proximity of the imminent holiday of Hanukka) has saved our house from sure fire and brought us from darkness to light, and the story shall be told for at least 8 days in dozens of versions, to whomever wants to hear and those who do not but are too polite to say so…

So let’s not get into the petty tiny technical details like the minor actuality that in fact, all that was caused by John himself, who proudly declared:
“See what an incredible husband you have?
One who manages to solve the problems he causes!”.

Yep…………..

As they say, “Behind every successful man there’s a woman rolling her eyes…”.

And, just for the record, some questions that were asked by his rolling wife:
- “Why didn’t we call 911?”
- “Why isn’t there a smoke-alarm in the attic” (well, there is, now).
- “Why didn’t we call 911?”
- “Why didn’t we call 911?”
- “Why didn’t we call 911?”

John showed me the wire that was mutilated by the nail, and it looks gruesome, the kind of things that the inspector with the wrinkled forehead in “Law & Order” finds when he digs amongst the ashes at the scene of the arsen: two ends with wild metal-hair protruding with black spots – a sight for sore eyes indeed.

But – it wasn’t really over.
There was an urgent need to fix the wires, or more accurately change the wire, that went up to the wires’ heaven, with a new fresh wire, and shove it through the wall towards the light switch.
“Shall we call an electrician?”, I asked with incorrigible inherent naivety.
“Na…”, scorned John, “It’s a very simple thing to do”.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaa…………………

And so, he got up the next morning, rosy-cheeked and merry, woke me up with that annoying energy that’s typical to morning people, and turned into a one-man recruiting center, as he was about to replace the wire, and I was about to become his little helper.

You see, real men never ever work alone.

They always have a congenial assistant who hands them the screwdriver and takes back the screwdriver and again hands the screwdriver because they forgot to drive the screw and takes the screwdriver back from their tired hands – and all with gracefully flowing gestures.
(The novel idea of simply putting the screwdriver nearby does not exit on Mars. Only on Venus.
And if you dare suggest that proposal of efficiency, the response is an utter insult and a comprehensive lecture about how they have saved the house from the fire and how can I not even be willing to hand them the screwdriver, Oh, and apropos screwdriver, hand it to me for a second…).
We played the shove-‘n-pull game, for an hour or two, with the new wire which consistently refused to pass through the wall. John sitting comfortably on a chair near the light switch, and myself performing Cirque-du-Soleil acrobatics on top of the ladder, trying to push and shove – and nothing worked - - -

- - - so, my studio ended up having a grand hole, right above the switch, which John has cut in order to work around the obstacle that blocked the wire from passing.
Yes, I did write ‘cut’, and not because my English is so poor, but because that’s the way it is in the USofA, or at least in California: you do not break the wall with an ax or a sledge-hammer like you do in the holy land, but you follow this simple recipe:
- Take one cutting knife (yep, the one you use for cutting tomatoes will do, only a toothed one)
- Take one wall
- Cut through.

And so, the saga was not over.

Indeed, the darkness has been driven away, my studio got lit with the luster and glow of many lumens and the merriment was opulent.
And yet, there was a hole in the wall (and also in the bucket, dear John, dear John…), but – what does it matter?
John will fix. Sometime.

And only when the hole came to live with us, only then was I enlightened with the ultimate understanding, my face shined with the light of wisdom, and my eyes - that were in advanced stages of double rolling - lit up.

Because I finally got it.

I understood the insistence of doing everything on your own.

Because, if you call a professional, he will just come and fix it. Like, boring!?
However, if you do it yourself, not only is the ego getting bigger in several magnitudes, as you feel that you are Da Man, and there’s a lot to tell the guys, but you also get the added value and sheer joy of causing damage while fixing something.
And then you need to fix the new damage…
...and when fixing that, you break something else...
and this is how you get into this endless loop of self home-improvements and you go to OSH again and again and meet lots of guys who have rolled-eyed women at home – and that is the meaning of life.

So, all that’s left is to glorify and praise the private handyman, pat him on the shoulder with discernible commendation, and find comfort in the gladdening stories of friends who have also been blessed with such men.

“OK, but what about the watercolor paper???”, y’all ask with growing anxiety.
It will arrive.
Sometime.

Actually, after John went to work and left me with a gap in the wall, I called that Internet supplier and took all my grouchiness on the customer service gal who replied to me in frozen politeness, while relentlessly Ma’aming me.
My own arguments were presented in no less matter-of-fact frozen politeness, but I was also armed with the exhaustion that comes from the handing-and-receiving a screwdriver 78 times, and a lot of rage about the fact that this website’s negligence to ship what I have paid for was not happening for the first time.
The tiresome discussion (which included talking to her supervisor) ended only after I got tired of playing the role of the woe-stricken customer whose whole career is ruined by the lack of paper, and allowed myself to generously accept their peace offering of refunding the shipping fees (which is pretty nice!).
I have reviewed with her what is to be shipped to me in order to make sure it’s clear, emphasized how disappointed I was that I will not get it before the holiday, and cheerfully greeted her with a Merry Christmas (holiday spirit or not?).
She replied faintly, and I am pretty sure as for the nature of the last word in her greeting, which was probably said after she made sure the phone is securely hung up……. ;-)

OK, I am dead tired now.
Just so you understand, I have first written this nutshell concise report in Hebrew, and today I decided it should be translated to English, so that non-Israelis can enjoy and joy as well…

Happy, Merry, Cheerful, Blissful and Wonderful Christmas-Hanukka-Kwanzaa-New-Year-anything!!


Oh, after that eventful night, John sat and wrote a heart-warming poem about the whole thing, which he first sent out as an original way to tell his boss and co-workers why he was going to be late to work the following morning, and ended up sending it to his whole distribution list. (So, some of you have already read it, and now you have both sides of the story).
And so typed the husky firefighter, sweating more than he did up in the attic, counted syllables on his scorched fingers, and – here it is, plus the picture he took after it was all over.
By the way, the fearful “flame” you see in it is in fact the yellow tape he twisted around the rebellious wires, which creates a highly impressive – yet very misleading – optical effect of live fire…
But - the burnt triangle in the blackened beam is very, very real.