Fan-tastic

I am fairly certain that when I open my ceiling fan installation business, it will take off like gangbusters.
The main reason for that is that I can guarantee that not only will I install your fans with stunning efficiency, I will also guarantee that a whopping 75 percent of the glass domes will be intact when I am finished.
I base this business model on a recent afternoon of fun and excitement spent installing ceiling fans at my mother’s house. A while back, she bought four of them and made casual mention that she was going to pay to have them installed.
She said this in front of my brother-in-law and me, and the idea of having someone else come in and do guy stuff made our testosterone surge. Before we knew it, we had volunteered to do the fans, boasting that we could knock it out in a matter of minutes.
I am not really sure why we volunteered to do this. While my brother-in-law is more handy that I am, neither of us are exactly lighting up the Bob Vila circuit. And when you add in electricity, well, that’s just asking for trouble. I once tried to fix a broken light socket, and found out that there is a whole bunch of electricity in those little wires. (Note to self: If a light socket is broken, you will not know if you turned off the correct breaker. Well, there is a way you can know, but it hurts. Bad.)
So we geared up for an afternoon, figuring that between the two of us, we could piece together the installation. Fortunately, ceiling fan companies have realized that some people who install ceiling fans have the home improvement skills of a gecko and have made it fairly idiot proof.
I am sure you are surprised that the first fan took us a very long time. (That included a call to an actual electrician, who seemed to find our questions rather quaint.) As we sat there with all of the pieces spread out, we began trying to assemble the parts. After about 20 minutes of doing the world’s most difficult jigsaw puzzle, my brother-in-law said, “Hey, here’s an idea...”
I was thinking we would just go with what we have and hang it up there semi-assembled. Turns out, his idea involved following the directions that came with the fan. Risky, I thought, but worth a go.
Once we began to follow the steps, it was amazing how fast it went. Part A connects to part B. Part C to Part D. Wham, bam, thank you, fan.
After we finished the first one, we assumed that the others would go rather quickly. And we were pleased to find out that was, for the most part, pretty accurate. The one minor hiccup came when my wife decided to interject her opinions into the issue.
“Uh, why is the globe on that one hanging down?”
Looking up at the dome on one of the fans, I noticed that, in fact, it was hanging crooked. “It’s fine,” I said.
My brother-in-law, clearly no longer on my side, said, “Dude, that’s pretty bad.”
The dome was held by three little screws, and I had apparently missed one of them, so it was more or less dangling from the base of the fan. “Fine,” I said, grabbing the step ladder to put it up the way SOME people just have to have it.
Now this was the time that I think my brain took a quick hiatus. I reached up and unscrewed one of the two screws that was in correctly. And at that point, our good friend gravity paid a visit, showing us what he thought of an unsecured glass dome.
As luck would have it, this fan was right over a solid wood ledge by some stairs, so when it crashed, it not only obliterated but also spread glass down the stairs and throughout the hall. And, as an added bonus, it distributed several shards into my hands. Several of us began cleaning up the glass, at which my point my wife said for me to stop picking up the pieces. “I’m being careful,” I told her.
“It’s not that. You’re getting blood on the carpet.”
Duly noted.
Fortunately, the cuts were not that bad. They just opted to bleed a lot. And with the globe being solid white, it was easy to pick the pieces out of my hands. (Am I the eternal optimist or what?)
After several hours, we completed the installation of the final fan. By the fourth one, we were a well-oiled machine of fan installation. So call us when you need one installed. I’ll try not to bleed on your carpet.