Changing of the Bulbs
Handyman on Nov 28 2009 at 9:18 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
I played around with Christmas lights last night. It was a sort of zen-like experience. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. I’m better for having done it and my life has more meaning. But it wasn’t all that fun.
I like the little Christmas tree lights. I like the colors and I like that they aren’t so ‘in your face’ as the Christmas tree lights many of us remember from our childhood. Back then, the lights were in two sizes – big for outside and little for on the tree. Still little was big in comparison to what we’ve got today.
I do like the little lights that are available to us Christmas light consumers these days. Though the changing of the bulbs is not nearly so easy.
I’m a little particular when it comes to holiday lights (many of us are). And last night, I was re-testing all the strings that I had carefully put away from last year. Each was bundled nicely and packed into one of two boxes: those that had been tested and were working before being put away; and those that were tested and found to be wanting (in one way or another) before being put away.
A string of lights might ‘be wanting’ for a few reasons. Maybe it just doesn’t light up at all. Maybe there are a bunch of burnt out bulbs that need to be replaced. Maybe there seems to be a short in the string and it sort of only lights up on only when you have your left foot in the air.
Sometimes you just don’t have the time to investigate or fix all the concerns before you really need to Christmas packed up and put away because you really need to bring out the bunting and flags for 4th of July. Which, to your dismay, you discover all need to be laundered because although everything was in zip lock bags to keep them crisp from last year, you can’t be sure that you actually did launder everything. So, what the hell, you wash everything again because, as I said earlier, I’m particular.
What? 4th of July? NO NO NO. I get so easily distracted. The Changing of the Bulbs, right.
So, last night I discovered to my dismay, that I did not have a string of little blue lights. At least not a string that worked. I had red and gold and green and white. But I had to have blue as well. I had three strings of blue lights that were in the ‘be wanting’ box. So it was time to fix them.
Change the fuses – no luck. Check the bulbs to make sure they are all securely in place – no luck. Check a random sampling of bulbs in another string to make sure that they worked – yes they did. So there was only one thing to do – replace the entire string.
Yes, you take a string that does work (in this case it was a string of green lights) and see if the lights from the blue string fit into the string that has the green bulbs. That almost never works. Somehow, in China, they know how to make each string just a bit ‘unique’ so that you can’t just pull out the bulbs and put them into a new string. Those little green sleeves around each bulb don’t fit into the other receiver ends on the string itself.
So you have no choice but to pop out all the green lights from their holders. This means that you pull them each off of the string and create a pile of green bulbs in their little green sleeves. I then unbended the two wires and slide out each bulb. So you have a pile of bulbs and a pile of green holders (you put the holders into a little ingredient bowl because these are the ones that do fit the string that works and you want to keep them separate from the bulb holders that fit the string that doesn’t work).
You repeat the process with the blue bulbs. You then take too snack size ziploc bags and put the green bulbs that you won’t be using into one and put the bulb sleeves that used to house the blue light from the string that doesn’t work into another. You place both baggies into your box of light paraphernalia.
You know, it’s the box that has all the blinking light bulbs and the extra fuses, the extra lights, and little green bulb holders from previous alteration. You know – That Box.
Anyway, now you have nekkid blue bulbs and a pile of bulbs sleeves. After carefully straightening out the wires on each bulb, you can slide them into the bulb sleeves and then each sleeve into the receptor on the string. and…
Voila! the green string of lights has been transformed into a blue string of lights.
That don’t light.
I like the little bulbs we have for Christmas these days. But The Changing of the Bulbs was a lot easier when the bulbs were big and didn’t have little sleeves and everything was interchangeable.
-
Bob Brown
