Sunday, December 12, 1999
Holiday lights bring little joy to unhandy man
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The day broke sunny and horrible, made ominous by the desperate sounds of Christmas carols dirging from the house next door. Hark this joy, neighbor.
The strings of white lights rested in their cardboard box, wrapped in their red and green tissue paper, coiled in perfect circles, lurking. Waiting for me.
I'm not good at Christmas lights. I'm not good at anything mechanical. I couldn't fix a bent paper clip. Next to me, Tim (the Tool Man) Taylor built the pyramids.
My family knows this. They see me with a hammer, they call 911. I pull out the socket wrench, they're dialing the National Guard.
I once angrily took my lawnmower back to the store where I bought it, demanding to know why the stupid thing wouldn't start. “It's brand new,” I said. “I want answers, and I want them now.”
The guy looked at me. “Ain't got no gas,” he said.
One grim summer, we decided to finish our basement, so the children would have another room to tear up. My father-in-law, who built his house, was called in to help. I worked really hard at providing the nails and the wood. He helped by building the entire room.
The day he sent me to the hardware to get a C clamp, I came back with a T square. By the end of the week, he suggested his daughter file for divorce.
Guys are supposed to be able to fix stuff and build stuff. This goes way back to the hunter-gatherer days, when Fred cut the grass with the saber-toothed cat and Wilma dusted the cave with the little furry mammal. It's just the way it is.
Only not with me. I'm outside with the stupid strings of dumb Christmas lights slung around my neck. “I could get strangled here,” I say to my wife.
“I'll strangle you,” she says.
The problem is, whenever I put the lights on the spruce tree, I end up with the wrong plugs when I'm finished. I get two males. (Yeah, that's what she said. Heh-heh.)
Actually, I did the first spruce perfectly, on the first try. I strung the lights and ended up with male and female plugs. It was beautiful.
I tried copying that with the second tree. It was a solid plan, only I stepped on the light string as I was pulling it around the tree, and now the whole thing doesn't work.
Other years, I forget to test the lights before I put them up. Naturally, when I get them up, they don't work. Usually, it's because one of the cheap, little bulbs is burned out, short-circuiting the whole strand.
When you try to take one bulb out and replace it, the little monster busts in your fingers. That leaves you with half a light stuck in the socket. You need a degree in microsurgery to get it out.
Holidays are brutal.
In my neighborhood, light-stringing is a contest. It used to be candles in the windows, then maybe a string of whites around the front door. Now, if your house isn't lit up like Caesar's Palace, you're a slacker. In December, you can see my neighborhood from outer space.
I got the lights up. Actually, I did the heavy lifting. The wife made sure all the plugs fit. After a decade, the job is still beyond me. When Chevy Chase filmed the movie Christmas Vacation, I mentored him.
When I string the lights, the neighborhood shows up for comic relief. No problem. I poison their egg nog.
Christmas is a grim business.
Paul Daugherty, an Enquirer sports columnist, writes a lifestyle column on Sunday. He welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
