thunder and fire

Photo by Ralph W. lambrecht on Pexels.com

hear that sound that roar
over your head
that’s the sound of thunder
better run under your bed

hear that crack of fire
out to singe your soul
that’s the sound of thunder
better duck in a hole

feel the terror, the fear, the anger

the force of thunder and fire
and as a matter of course
know that you are a target
waiting to be struck

CRACK

it’ll hit you hard
knock you flat on your face

the force of thunder and fire
the force of thunder and fire
can reach anyplace

listen to the echo, echo, echo, echo
the rumble, the warning
of thunder and fire coming
to crush you
kiss the dirt in fear, trembling
and you may live

because you recognized
the sound of thunder and fire
and knew your place

“Thunder and Fire” © 1981 Ronald K. House

let there be light, or not

English: A roll of silver, Scotch brand duct tape. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have one of those plastic outdoor sheds. I was looking for something in it late one evening and boy was it dark in there. I bumped into something and heard a thump as something fell. Not good to be bumbling around in the dark, or I could end up with some garden shears stuck in my foot. So, I added getting a light for the garden shed to my to-do list. Next time we were in OSH, I bought a little battery powered, LED motion detector light. Looked perfect for my dark shed situation.

So, the next weekend as I’m working though my to-do list, I go out to our garden shed and decide to put the new light on the inside just above the door. That way it should turn on whenever we walk in. I open the package up and see that it has some sticky backing to put on and two screws with a paper guide for drilling. They really want to get this thing to stay up, I guess. That sounds good to me. I wouldn’t want it to fall on my head or something. So, I get a drill and drill two pilot holes with the guide. Then I begin screwing in the screws. So far, so good. I take off the back and insert the batteries. I’m thinking that I’m almost all done.

Next, I start to stick on what I thought was a double sticky tape, but it turned out to be two pieces of Velcro with sticky backs. That’s Okay. I take one side, that is shaped in a big circle and covers the whole back of the light cover, and stick it on. Then I go to stick the other side on. Oops. There are no holes for the screws. What the…?

I guess, if I had bothered to read the one page of instructions that fell on the floor when I opened the package, I would have realized they must have intended for me to either use the Velcro or to use the screws. Not both. However,  reading directions,  or asking for directions, doesn’t come easy for any man. We already intuitively ‘know ‘ how to do things. It’s in our work jeans, er, i mean it’s how our  genes work.

Now, I had what we call a little situation. Velcro on the light cover and two screws stuck into the plastic of my garden shed. This might seem like a silly situation to you. To me, however, it is something that seems to happen all of the time. Okay, I’m undaunted. I’ve spent pretty much my entire life as the square peg trying to fit into the round hole. So, this should be just another exercise in the deeper meaning of the futility of life for me… and it is.

First, I try to drill two holes to match the screws in the remaining Velcro. As it turns out, that is not very easy to do. So, I decide to give up on the Velcro and just use the screws. See, I can be flexible when I want to be. So, I take the light and try to put the back cover back on before I stick it up on the screws. This should be easy to just snap the back cover back into place, but it turned out to be harder than I expected. The cover didn’t seem to fit back on the light. I pushed on one side and it popped out on the other side. I pushed on the other side and it popped back out on the first side. Doesn’t anything, just work?

Unfortunately, there are times when brute force appears to a man to be a reasonable option. So, I took both parts and pushed as hard as I could until the back gave in and stayed in place. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Feeling very manly and handy, I turned and stuck the light up on the screws and then started to dance around to get it to turn on. However, before the motion sensor could detect my ridiculous antics, the back popped off and the light fell down onto my head. Ouch.

Having failed with force, I tried to resort back to reason. I am after all a reasonable man. I took the two parts of the light and looked at them closely. There were just a few very little plastic pieces that stuck out minutely on the cover side and on the matching inside of the light there a very small ridge for the pieces to desperately cling to. What kind of lame design was this? These two pieces should screw together or solidly turn and click into a fixed position or something.

But no. That’s not what they did. They sorta held together if you were lucky and very gentle. And my first attempt at force had already bent one or two of the plastic tabs. There was no way this back cover was going to hold the front portion of the light up like that. So, I carried the pieces back up to my room to think about what my alternatives were now. I sat the pieces on my dresser, where BTW they are still sitting after a week or so now. My only thought, so far, has been… you guessed it, duct tape.

As all men instinctively know, even wimpy non-handy men like myself, duct tape can be used for almost anything. It is the all purpose fixer-upper. Works for anything. Well, almost anything. I remember coming home one day to find my young (and future handyman) son with duct tape on his legs. I asked him what that was for and he told me he had scraped his legs and then used duct tape as a bandage. I had to tell him that this was not the right thing to do. “That’s what band-aids are for, son. Also, anytime in the future that you are bleeding. Tell me. Don’t just duct tape it. Okay?” But, I digress.

So, back to my outdoor light that is still sitting on my dresser. It is a good thing I don’t actually go out to my garden shed too often, especially in the dark. Anyway, I am thinking that duct tape is my only option. Well, that or super glue and I shudder thinking about the time I glued my fingers together with that. Shudder.

Of course, I could admit defeat as my wife suggests (“You broke it. Buy another one.”) But that is not in my nature. Just because something appears not to work, doesn’t mean it is broken. Or if it is broken, then that just means it is just waiting to be “fixed”. That is what guys like to do. We fix things. We break a lot of things, too. Which may be why we are genetically predisposed to try to fix things. But I digress, again.

Anyway, this saga is not over. So, I’ll let you know if the duct tape works when I get around to fixing this thing. In the mean time, I’m using it as a coaster on my dresser. Everything in the world has it’s purpose, I say. Until next time, keep the light on for me. It’s dark out there, especially in my shed.