The Lamp
Mon., December 27, 02:59 PM
It’s really not such a big deal. More than ten years ago I bought a cheap floor lamp, the kind with a little table on it. Its purpose was to allow me to read in bed if I wanted and to provide a convenient place for Kleenex, my glasses, or whatever. The lamp has continued to work for me – I certainly got my money’s worth – even though it got a little wobbly.
As it happens, last Wednesday, when I didn’t have to go to the office, I did a lot of stuff around the house. As long as I had the energy, I changed sheets, did some laundry, vacuumed, and so forth. After lunch, of course, I napped for about three hours. The sleep enabled me to stay up for “CSI: New York,” not as good as Vegas, but not bad. By then I was tired enough to go back to sleep.
A couple of hours later I woke up, my muscles protesting that maybe I had done too much that day. I reached over for my Tylenol. The table seemed looser than usual, so I tried to tighten it – and the lamp came apart. Ah, such timing.
Steadying the lamp with one hand, I managed to take everything off the table with the other. Then I was able to sit up and repair the lamp. What am I doing? It’s two in the morning and I’m trying to fix a lamp? Well, I couldn’t go to sleep with it propped into place; that wasn’t safe. Finally I unplugged it and figured out how to carry it out of the room, because there was no place for it in here. It was three pieces, but still held together by the cord… I managed, nevertheless, to get it into the front room, out of everyone’s way, and I could go back to sleep.
Husband’s first remark of the morning, of course, was “what’s that lamp doing there?” I explained. “Maybe I can fix it,” he said. Sure, he could try; I couldn’t see the threads, but I suspected they were stripped. I gave him his meds and left for work.
When I got back, he was still awake, working on the lamp. He had taken the glass table off (the only thing worth saving, in my opinion), and he was trying to put the rest of it back together. He sat there all afternoon, stopped for supper, and went back to working on it. Every time I got up during the night, he was still up. (Well, maybe he was sleeping at the table at times; he does that.) I heard him go to bed after my alarm went off in the morning.
This project seemed to interest him more than anything has in months. U.D. and I suggested that he should try to fix things more often, but he doesn’t like that idea. He has taken the lamp pieces into his room – though we all know he can’t fix it – and now either Son or I will have to dispose of it when he’s not looking. He doesn’t throw away anything that might have a use sometime. We have already discarded piles of stuff that he kept until it was obsolete. We also saved stuff that he could still use, but he hasn’t touched it.
How can I figure out what toys will please him? My seventy-six-year-old child.
Meanwhile, of course, I need another light in this room. But first I have to rearrange… Y’know, that’s another story.
