Just as last year, and the year
before, and the year before that year, I spent the previous 4½ hours with a
test meter checking bulbs in my many strings of Christmas lights.
Ghost hunters, UFO chasers, and
crypto zoologists, spend countless years trying to figure out the reality of
the paranormal, extraterrestrial aliens, and the existence of mythical
creatures.
If only they would sit with me
for a brief time around the approaching Christmas season, we all might be able
to note a miraculous scientific discovery, together.
I could possibly lead them
directly to a poltergeist-like entity that somehow manages to creep into my
garage, during the off-season, and wreak havoc on my strings of lights.
Each end-of-Christmas-season
ritual is the same, with me carefully wrapping the newly de-hung lights,
labeling them, and packing them neatly into boxes until next year.
And each new season begins with
the hope of a trouble-free reassembly of last year’s scheme of festive outdoor
illumination. No such luck.
This first string pulled from the
hermetically sealed packaging worked well last year. With crossed fingers, I plugged it into the
workbench electrical strip and…
The baffling part is that there
were no steam rollers cavorting about my garage, nor were there any ravaging
hedge clippers wreaking havoc among the Christmas decorations.
My tradition was no disappointment
this year. Out comes the tester to
figure out why there is no light emanating from my lights.
Both Smokey the cat and my sainted
wife wanted in on the action. One wanted
to play with the removed bulbs and fuses, my sainted wife was begging for cat
treats. Maybe it was the other way
around.
In any case, the effort to locate
and isolate the problem coughed up thoughts of far more technical matters.
In the 1960’s, then-President
John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to build a rocket ship to the Moon. That flight was launched in 1969 and made
Americans the envy of the world.
Scientists and engineers huddled
together to create a craft to ferry three men to the Moon and back. Not without problems, these brainiacs
accomplished their mission, solving problems not within walking distance, with
aplomb.
The former Soviet
Union was left in our dust as we, as a nation, displayed technological
feats never seen before.
Unfortunately, President Kennedy
didn’t challenge Christmas light manufacturers to create strings of lights that
didn’t require a master’s of science degree to get them to work two consecutive
years.
It wasn’t long before one string
after another found their way into my favorite garbage can. To avoid temptation of retrieving them later,
I severed them like a Top Chef contestant chopping Vidalia onions.
And so goes the mystery of the
Christmas lights until they are repackaged for next years’ round of these
games. Perhaps I’ll win then.
