All of my dogs in my adult life have also been adults - or downright oldsters. I LOVE me my oldster dogs. Now I have a youngster - Lovey - and it is such a joy. Until she shreds things. And then. Then there is Pepperoni. NOT a youngster by any stretch of the imagination at age 13. Minus 22 teeth. But those remaining five teeth in his tiny noggin can do more damage than any puppy I've been up against.
Case in point - the Mouse Obsession Period. That period when he ripped off (or gummed off, it was plenty soggy) a portion of the back of the couch skirting and chewed a lamp cord to bits. He was a very lucky dog, in that it was plugged into the timer, so there was no juice with which to toast those five teeth. Bugger.
I am sure it will come as no surprise to most of you that I was not inclined to replace my lamp, but to fix it. I mean, how hard could it be? I have numerous reference books on home repairs. There is YouTube. There is How-to-whatever. I trotted off to Home Depot and bought a replacement cord. It was over six bucks! Really?
I then sat down to deconstruct the lamp. I do have to admit that deconstructing stuff is way more fun than constructing it. I have taken things apart gleefully since I was a kid. Even the exploding golf ball didn't dampen my obsession.
A half hour later, I had managed to work my way through the lamp, using every screwdriver and wrench in my tool box. I was following the cord, hoping to find the end where I could easily (cough) detach the chewed cord and attach the new one. It was not easy. This was because the lamp had been made in China for the new THROWITAWAY generation of Americans. Pfft. I had to cut the cord at the screw-on-thingy part (more tech-talk) and then go searching around for a replacement - I was determined not to spend another cent on this project. I did finally find a replacement (of sorts) at my neighbor's. He never throws anything away, thank goodness.
I spent another hour, threading the new cord through the disassembled lamp, reassembling it as I went. Paging carefully through my Readers Digest Home Repair Manual (thanks Mom and Dad), I was happy that the attachment looked easy. Except for the fact that my replacement cord had no definition between silver and bronze (ground and live). Sigh. I looked at the package. Made in China. I took a technical leap (eeny, meeny, miney, moe....) and connected them. Then I screwed in the bulb and plugged it in. It lit! So I finished my Jerry-rigged job and put the shade on and plugged it in. It did NOT turn on. I put it in the guest room to haul out for another day when I was feeling smarter.....
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