Life's an adventure, I tell ya.
About 2 weeks ago, the single-tube 2-foot [0.6096 meters, for my Facebook friend Dave, what with him being over in Germany and all] fluorescent light over the kitchen sink went out. The fixture's hard-wired with a wall switch, and it's the one I installed about 10 years ago. I've owned the house 20 years as of August 2014, so I guess that 10 years must be the life of these lights. But that's not how the adventure started.
It all started when I went to Wally World and bought a replacement tube...which never made it to my car. [I think the checkout girl either just forgot to put it in a bag, or forgot to give me that bag.] So I called the service desk when I got home, and some regional manager named Allison answered the phone. She told me to come get another one, and tell the folks at the service desk when I get there that "Allison said so."
Wellllll.....it was several days before I made it back to Wally World, but when I told the folks at the service desk that "Allison said so," everything suddenly went my way. I reckon if I'd have told 'em to give me all their money 'cause "Allison said so," I'd have walked out of there a rich man that day. So I got my 2-foot tube, and this time I got home with it.
When I installed it...nada. Nada damn thing changed. So I decided that, since the local hardware folks seldom carried the type of stuff I needed , I'd check out either BLowes or Deep Homo my next trip uptown. Well today was that trip. Before I left, I checked the BLowes website, and they not only listed the fixture I wanted, but the website said it was in stock for immediate pick-up. So I drove the 30 miles to the store...to discover that, not only was it NOT in stock, but the sample in their display was marked "N/A"...as in NOT AVAILABLE.
So I left and drove to another past of town to the closest Deep Homo store...the one with the orange buckets and orange aprons. At Deep Homo, I also discovered I was SOL...simply out of luck...if I wanted to use that newly-purchased but once-installed so no longer returnable 2-foot-long [0.6096 meters long] T8 fluorescent tube. [Maybe if "Allison said so," they'd take it back, but I figured I'd already been lucky once.] BUT I was able to find someone for some customer assistance at Deep Homo...something apparently lacking on the day before Labor Day at BLowes. The employee told me that they apparently no longer carried the 2-foot-long [0.6096 meters long] T-8 fixture, but they'd be happy to sell me a 2-foot long [0.6096 meters long] T-5 fixture. The T-8 bulb is about an inch and a half [3.81 cm] in diameter, and the T-5 is about the size of my middle finger.
So, since I had plans to install the light on Labor day, instead of giving the employee at Deep Homo the middle finger [which I have now dubbed "T-5," just because it makes the REST of the people look at me funny], I bought the T-5 fixture, and will give it a go at installation on Labor Day.
Yep, life's an adventure...except when life is a rock, but the radio rolled me.
