Still Life with Robin: Making the Switch

 by Peggy Robin

A couple of months ago I needed an electrician to do a few small repairs. He came over right away to give me an estimate, and schedule a time to come back and do thework. As he was almost out the door, I realized, before he left, I should ask him about a "migh's'well" job. 

What is a "migh's'well" job? (you may ask). A "migh's'well" (pronounced "mise-well") is a job that you think could be done quickly and cheaply, once a contractor is in your home already, doing other things. The full- sentence meaning of a migh'swll job is: "While you are here, you might as well do this other thing, too."

In this case, the "migh's'well" job was a little quirk of the house wiring that had been annoying me since 1988, the year we moved in. We have a tiny, downstairs half-bathroom toward the back of the front hall. It's windowless, so you always want to reach in and flick the light on before you enter. If you don't do that, and you close the door behind you, you will be in near-total darkness.

But the moment the light comes on, so does the fan. They're on the same switch. And that old fan is NOISY. From the moment we moved in, I was thinking, "Why didn't they put in a separate switch for the fan?" The other bathrooms in the house all have separate switches for the fan. Why doesn't this one?" And then I would think to myself, "One of these days...."

For 37 years  I have had the "one of these days" thought as I flicked on that bathroom. And then, in November, "one of these days" turned into "TODAY."

The electrician said it was a simple matter, and it didn't add much to the overall bill. He came back at the appointed date and time, did his thing, and when he was done, here was my new bathroom switch:

Looks good, right? So what's my problem now?

Muscle memory -- that's what. I've had 37 years of reaching into the bathroom and flicking a switch upward before I step in. Now I have to reach in and flick the switch sideways. Simple change of direction. But after 37 years of the upward flick, it seems like my brain can't adjust to the new hand movement Or maybe my fingers are automatically primed to make the up-down flick because that's what's been imprinted in my finger-muscles for several decades. But here I am, two months later, still trying to flick upwards.

I kind of wish the electrician could have wired it to give me a teeny little electric shock if I touch the switch from the wrong direction, to train me to make the right finger motion.

No wait, bad idea! Better one: turn the switch into one of those voice-activated ones. I just say "ON!"

Well, one of these days I just might look into that....

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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.