As a guy I'm a sucker for a challenge, particularly one brought on by another guy. Anthropologists believe the first ever guy-to-guy challenge occurred in 2327 B.C. I am not making this up. A recently discovered series of cave drawings in Africa clearly show two cave guys (Ug and Fug) mocking another cave guy's (Larry) club. There is controversy as to why Larry had such a small wooden club, perhaps there was a lack of quality felled trees, or a strike at the club factory that year due to mismanagement by Bud Selig. Regardless of the cause, experts agree that what happened next wasn't pretty, suffice to say that years later, while eating his first chicken, Larry commented, "chicken tastes just like Ug and Fug!"
With this guy-only challenge loving "gene" engrained in my DNA, it should not suprise you that I was recently precariously balanced on a dual ladder contration to switch out the ceiling fan on our cathedral ceiling.
This all started when Teresa, staring up for the first time, quipped, "That is the ugliest fan ever." Using my highly honed guy technique I decided to fake deafness. Especially since the fan was mounted in the center of a 25 foot ceiling! So I avoided her for months... This is not a particularly easy thing to do. I would wait for the conversation to drift towards the fan and then ZOOM!!! like a cheetah! By the time the words "... ceiling fan" were out of Teresa's mouth, I would be in a different time zone. Unfortunately, Teresa caught on to my strategy and trapped me by pretending to be talking about guitars. Once she steered the conversation towards the fan I was trapped like a wild animal.
It didn't hurt that the first time we turned on the fan, we discovered the phrase "they don't make them like they used to" in this case meant they no longer make fans out of spare rusted lawnmower parts. I would estimate the noise coming from the fan as somewhere between a rock drill and a table saw according to this website.
So we bought a ceiling fan from the Home Depot for $140. Although there is a poststamp sized sign near the fans that say, "Ask us about home installation", apparently this isn't a popular option for your standard Home Depot consumer. In fact, this is so unpopular an option, that I had to track down 3 Home Depot employees to find out any information about installation. His response was, "Ah. You have to ask Paul." Paul is, apparently, a mystical employee that lives in the store. He hides in the lumber aisle. If enough other employees call him on their radios, he ascends from atop the stacks of plywood to be at one with the people. I tried to take a picture of him, for you readers, during this annual visit, but he claimed it would steal his soul. So this is the closest I could fine online. So here is a drawing of Paul.
I don't know if every Home Depot has a Paul, or even if they are all named Paul, but regardless, you can go to the Home Depot in Shrewsbury, MA to find him. I would start camping out now for an early Summer 2007 meeting.
Paul explained to us that it is easier to get a waterbuffalo to mate with a dragonfly than have Home Depot install your ceiling fan. This was partly because they needed $50 to tell you how much it would cost. If you didn't like the price they quoted you, they kept the $50 as a consolation prize. As far as I can tell this is a brilliant business strategy. You get paid $50/job without doing any actual work. You can drive to someone's home... examine the situation... and claim that you'll be happy to do the work for a mere $1,293, a sheep, goat, and the spleen of a mermaid. We thanked Paul, sacrificed a carriage bolt in his honor and left with a ceiling fan and no ability to install it.
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