Herself is getting nervous about security.

I don’t know why, because there is fuck all worth stealing in this place.  The only things of value around here are my laptop, and I’m not leaving that lying around for some knacker to lift, and my tea mug.

We have security lights around the outside of Head Rambles Manor.  They are the type that switch on when someone walks past.  They haven’t worked for the last ten years as the bulbs had all blown and I couldn’t be bothered to replace them.

Herself decided that I should fix them.  Why the hell she couldn’t fix them herself, I don’t know.  I would even be prepared to hold the ladder while she worked up there, but no – she decided it was my job.  Cow.

I knew there were a couple of spare bulbs lying around somewhere and I actually managed to find them, which is very unusual.  Of course they were the wrong size.

I headed into Skobieville to see if I could get a replacement bulb.  Or two.  Or three.

I went to that massive barn of a place they call a DIY superstore.  As a male of the species, you would think I would enjoy poking around there, as it’s full of lovely tools of mass destruction, but you would be wrong.  I hate the place.  It’s too big and they play irritating muzak which annoys the hell out of me.

I poked around the shelves and the racks.  I found all the things that I normally can’t find there, but no light bulbs.  I did find some but they were the wrong size.

I went to the help desk.  If ever anything were so appropriately misnamed, I have yet to find it.  I asked the Yang Wan behind the counter for help.  She looked at me as if I had just woken her from a long sleep [which I probably had] and mouthed something into a microphone. This produced a totally unintelligible racket from the speakers, which at least drowned out the muzak for a minute.  She indicated that I should wait.  I waited.  And waited.

In the end, I got pissed off waiting and left.

I went next to the Electrical Superstore.  Again, they had the right bulbs, but the wrong size.

I went to an electrical wholesaler.  They had the right bulbs in the right size, but they were out of them.

Fuck that.

In the end, I called down to my friend in the Dark Hole.

The Dark Hole is an electrical shop I found recently.  It is marginally larger than a telephone kiosk, and it is dark, because the only [very small] window is obscured by boxes of electrical appliances they look like they were left in for repair before the advent of electricity.  There is room for one customer and one shopkeeper, and that’s about it.

I told the chap there what I was looking for, and he reached out and took a fistful of them out of a little box beside his head.  “How many do you want?”  he asked.

I laughed.  I have been there a couple of times before looking for obscure things, and he always seems to have exactly what I want in a little box just behind his head.   Has anyone ever read Stephen King’s ‘Needful Things’?

I bought four and went home.

After a mug of strong tea to get my nerves back in shape, I decided to put in the bulbs, now that I had them.

I only fell off the ladder once, but I got the job done.

Now the fucking security lights won’t switch off!

The fucking knackers can have my tea mug.