Jill's Journal: How many humans does it take to ...

We’ve all heard the “How many – blondes/Norwegians, men, Germans/or whomever we’re trying to poke fun at – does it take to replace a lightbulb” joke or something to that effect. 

The answer, as silly as it may be: Three. One to hold the bulb and two to turn the ladder.

On Friday morning, it took a village to do just that. Or so I thought.

What I imagined would be a simple task of replacing the bulbs in two of our ceiling light fixtures, consumed more than two hours of my morning. And with a load of story and photo assignments to tackle, I didn’t have the time for what turned into a “scavenger hunt”.

The first person I enlisted the help of is Carl, our advertising sales/marketing rep, who joined the Journal team in June. To our fortune, Carl, brings some height to the office, not to mention a ‘I want to help’ attitude.

“I have a favor to ask,” I said to him shortly after his arrival.

“Uh, oh,” was his teasing response.

My request was to have him take down two of our current light fixtures – the first time needed since opening our doors in 2017 – so I knew what kind of bulb I needed to replace them with. As it turns out, I was in need an entirely new light plate, and with a quick search online, I learned they were in the neighborhood of $25 a light.

So, off to the local hardware store I went, where I quickly found what I was looking for.

Call it good timing, I enlisted the help of local contractors Stan and Rob Schoeneman, who happened to stop by the Journal office to OK their ad. I asked – perhaps “directed” – Rob to help me out with assembling the light fixtures. Soon, Stan and Carl brought their expertise to the project.

Fast forward, the lights I had eaglerly plucked off of the shelf were soon determined to be “defective.” The defect, one would think would’ve been an easy problem to overcome. The issue with the fixture is that the screws that were provided did not fit the holes of the plate they were to be threaded through to affix to the light plate.

So, back to the hardware store I went in search of four screws that would fit through the hole in the plate, but yet, have a large enough “head” so that it wouldn’t slip through the clamp hole it needed to be threaded through. A clerk at the store led me to aisle 9, where the shelves on both sides of the aisle are filled from top to bottom with screws of every kind, size and purpose. Of course, that is, with the exception of the size I was on the hunt for. Hence, I left the store empty-handed.

So, back to the office I went to repackage the light fixtures for yet, my third trip to the hardware store that morning. On the way in, I met owner Jason, who greeted me with a friendly “hello.”

I obliged, but told him about the screwy light fixtures I was returning.

He deemed them defective, and I wasn’t arguing.

The hardware store graciously refunded me the cost, apologized more than needed – and I was sure to tell them that it wasn’t their fault – and next I steered my car to Fulda Electric, the company that initially installed the light fixtures for me in 2017.

I’m always eager to say “hello” to Marlene, who greets you at Fulda Electric. We were former co-workers about 20 years ago, and so there’s always something to catch up on. But Friday morning, I didn’t have a lot of time for chit chat. I was on a mission to purchase two light fixtures like the one I had in my hand. Marlene summoned a nice fella from the back, who told me that he’d see if they had access to these fixtures. He took my name and number and would get back to me when he found what I was looking for.

A few hours into my Monday morning, my phone rang and the nice fella who promised to call me once he located the light plates I was in need of, made good on that promise. The good news, he told me, is that he had found the light fixtures that I was in the market for. The bad news, he said, is that they were in one of their supplier’s warehouse in another state hundreds and hundreds of miles from Brandon.

For now, I’m “still in the dark” when it comes to answering the question to the corny joke, “How many humans does it take to replace two light fixtures at the Brandon Valley Journal office?”

The answer: One frazzled editor and way too many good folks who simply want to help.