They Just Don't Go Together

Or at least that is what I used to think. I always felt we needed to keep the black and the white apart. Having them together was dangerous and can lead to no good. If we let the two of mix with each other, there will be sparks! You may well think I am commenting on last week’s decision by the TDSB to go ahead with a planned black-focused school. Well I am not. I am talking about something much closer to home.

During a recent makeover of my powder-room I fancied myself a new light fixture. The builder’s four ugly bulbs just weren’t cutting it. In order to get all the wallpaper down, the existing fixture had to go and I worked with a spot light. This of course left two wires to deal with – a black and a white.

I know enough that as long as the power is off at the switch, these two wires are harmless. As I pulled down paper here and polyfilled there, I kept getting poked (hee hee) by the copper wires so I twisted them together, fastened them with an electrical wire nut and got on with the business at hand.

As I sanded the drywall compound it became quite dusty in that little space, so I reached over to flick on the fan for a little ventilation. You know where this is going right? Wrong switch. There was a ‘pop’ and then a pain in my forehead. That little nut nailed my noodle like nobody’s business. And those wires, well let me tell you what, they couldn’t have moved any further apart.

Breakers are a great thing though and there was no real harm done. I now have a beautiful bathroom and stunning light fixture thanks to the black and the white, working together.