I so wanted to be Tom Hanks in Castaway

when my mom and I tried to hang a ceiling fan in Jayne's room last night. I had my blog post all planned:

It would be titled: "I HAVE MADE FIRE!"

And there would be a picture of me dancing in front of the ceiling fan, light on and fan moving.

Of course, it wouldn't really have been fire, but I was at least hoping for some electric light. Unfortunately, when mom went to the basement and flipped the switch, and I flipped the wall switch and pulled the strings, nothing happened.

The fan looked damn good hanging from the ceiling, but when Jill said "Let there be light" there was no light. My best guess is that when we crammed the wiring back up into the piece that hangs from the ceiling, one of the connections got a little wonky. This is my best guess, because after screwing with the damn thing for three hours last night in waning light, we had to stop.

We left the fan attached to the ceiling, but had to leave the electric to Jayne's room turned off for the night.

I'm a big fat chicken when it comes to dealing with electrical. Twice in my life, I've been shocked by a household outlet - once while washing a car at my grandma's house, and once at mom and dad's when I was about 15. It didn't HURT, per se, it just scared the crap out of me (well, not literally). So, I was a little nervous when mom asked me to help her with the fan, but I thought it would be a good chance to learn something new, and accomplish something I hadn't done before.

I learned something new all right: Call a freaking electrician when installing ceiling fans. I think my three hours spent getting frustrated and standing on top of a ladder holding my arms up is definitely worth the fee for the service call!