I now carry into early March a brighter mood - one I associate with the solar powered hula girls, dancing bugs and flying pig that I watched swaying endlessly on the window sill of my friend Denny’s kitchen window sill last week.
Their more comic view of the world provided me with a brighter answer to a question that was plaguing my friend.
“Why,” he asked himself, “did it take me 30 years to change a light bulb?”
MORE FROM TOM STAFFORD: Shorty Gleadell is long-remembered
This is what I call a pinata question — the kind of question our in-laws are constantly hoping to ask about behavior that is clearly inexplicable.
But they should never be invited to do so, because these are matters of self-reflection, the sorts of questions we have to figure out for ourselves.
And once he spoke the words aloud, Denny’s mind got to it, spinning as fast as the blade of the four-foot tall metal windmill I could see on the far side of the hula girls and the flying pig.
His tone of voice indicated two things.
One: He was dumbfounded at his own behavior. Two: He was angry with himself - hot-headed to the degree one might expect from a hot sauce whose spokes beast is a kicking mule.
It’s largely because, Denny has no excuse.
This is a guy who can build hotrods from the ground up - the framing, the welding, the sheet metal work, the mechanics, the wiring, even the painting.
Surely, changing a light bulb is well within his skill set.
He did offer an explanation that he later called stupid.
MORE FROM TOM STAFFORD: Knowledge always seeps in
But it was understandable, I think, as a matter of self-protection. Because even asking the question is a near admission that your pinata support group has been right about you all along.
For the record, here’s his fake excuse.
The bulb had broken in such a way that it could only be unscrewed with the help of needle nose pliers pinching the bulb’s thin metal neck.
And since it had been 30 years since the light was turned on or off, his safety was at risk.
“Even with the chance of death involved,” he said, somewhat melodramatically, “it was a five-minute job” - and one that he’d been encouraged to do multiple times over 30 years by the two women who lived with him.
All of which lead Denny to conclude that his failure to go more than 946 million seconds without changing a lightbulb was evidence of some mental defect.
And this was where, as a good friend, I was happy to come to his rescue and look at the bright side.
First, two introductory remarks.
As a procrastinator of some note, I find 30 years as a figure to be respected.
Just think of the number of times one might have weakened and fallen prey to a sudden instinct to change a light bulb. It represents a level of diligence not often associated with procrastination.
Second, having changed the lightbulb, I now know my good friend can be at peace for another 30 years before he has to change it again.
Mostly, though, I think the inevitability of doing something colossally stupid is a part of life - and one that provides us with uncounted joys.
After years of such behavior, I’m now considering it an alternative lifestyle.
Some of our favorite family times are spent telling humiliating stories about, well, me. That stupidity - and the laughs that celebrate it - are part of the gunk that holds us all together.
MORE FROM TOM STAFFORD: Springfield’s Sonny Young lives the life his name dictates
I mean, who tells stories about changing a light bulb?
I have faith that the fates are on my side in this argument - faith confirmed last week by Denny himself.
After thoroughly kicking himself about the whole matter all week long, he got in his car, drove down the street and saw he’d failed to turn off the light bulb that took him 30 years to change.
It made him laugh out loud.
After 30 years, he’d now have to try to remember to turn the light off.
And it made me want to go out to a store, find a solar-powered grandpa in a rocking chair, and take my rightful place by the hula girls and the flying pig in a certain kitchen window sill.
It’s a part of life you gotta just sit back and enjoy.
About the Author