My Oh Too Close Thanksgiving Fiasco!

I like Thanksgiving. As a matter of fact I think it is my favorite holiday for a number of reasons. Primarily, it is a 4 day weekend and who doesn't love a four day weekend especially if you tack 3 vacation days onto it and turn it into a whopping 9 days off for the price of 3! It also has all the festiveness of Christmas but without the pressure and bank breaking tradition of gift giving. Mostly I like the food of Thanksgiving or more precisely I like cooking Thanksgiving food. It is a fun and easy meal to prepare and it is generally food that you only eat once a year....on Thanksgiving.

Because of my affinity for Thanksgiving I was quite excited to host the first Thanksgiving in my new home last year. I tacked on the 3 vacation days and that made it even more exciting for me. Like anyone I spent some time leading up to the big day doing some projects around the house, cleaning, and, being the organized maniac that I am, I did my shopping 2 weeks previous.

My house was a repo so I had to install all new lighting when I moved in and lots of other things needed fixed or replaced also.  I have been focusing on getting the main living area presentable and holding off on the spare bedrooms and my bedroom and bath.  I put in all new cabinetry before moving in but still needed to replace the vanity tops.  I found out that the vanity top in my guest/hall bath is a standard size....BONUS!  I bought a new top off the shelf at Lowes and had a friend come help me to carry the old one out and in the new.  I also bought new faucets and new stuff for the walls...my guest bath was going to be presentable for Thanksgiving!

Enter my manic, anal, everything must be perfect....usually self destructing...self.  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving I decide to move the light in the guest bathroom.  I think it was installed too low and want it moved up just a tad bit higher.  I am pretty handy around the house and figured I would be able to do this quickly and easily.  I get my little step stool and proceed to remove the screws that secured the light.  Hell, I even remembered to close the drains in the event that I dropped a screw I would not get into a plumbing project also.  With all screws removed I very gently pull the light ever so slightly away from the wall.....POP!....SPARK!...LIGHTS GO OUT!!!!!

Now I am standing on a stool, in a pitch black interior bathroom (i.e. no outside light whatsoever!) holding onto a new light (still attached by the wires), above my new faucets, installed on my new vanity top....completely alone.  Boy, did I feel alone too!  Way to go Miss you are not as handy as you think you are you stupid everything must be perfect dimwit.  I know what has happened and I assume the breaker blew, but somewhere in the back of my mind I keep thinking the wires may still be hot and I am about to get shocked!  Never mind the fact that I can't see, nor can I let go of the light as I know the weight of it will pull the wires loose and it will come crashing down on the new top and faucets and break the light into millions of pieces.  I can't just wait here in the dark for 2 days until my friends show up for Thanksgiving....can I?

My phone! My phone is in my back pocket! Of course it is, I am addicted to my phone and I always have it with me.  Now, you are probably thinking I called someone to come help me.  Quite the contrary, actually that thought never entered my mind.  What I did think of is the "Tesla LED" flashlight app I have installed on my phone.  If you don't have some kind of flashlight app on your phone I highly recommend getting one.  I turned on my flashlight app, which is amazingly bright, and was able to unscrew the wire nuts and gently set my light down on the counter.  Whew! Crisis averted.  Although I don't seem to have power to most of the back part of my house now.  Just how big a circuit is this anyway?

I just can't deal with the fact that I now have no power to the bathroom my guests will be using in two days and I am mentally exhausted.  I look at the clock and it is exactly, right on the nose....Oh Wine Thirty!  Guess it all will have to wait until tomorrow when I have mentally recouped from this very stressful situation.

The next day I hook the light back up, in the same position it was in and to this day I still have not moved it up.  I will someday, but it will have to be when someone is here to help me so I don't have to relive my oh too close Thanksgiving fiasco.