My Christmas Light Hanging Experience
Al Ritter
Now to preface my remarks.......I HATE heights! I have a two story house with an extremely steep roof angle so my actions from herein with tainted with extreme FEAR! Of course when I bought my 24ft extension ladder I never saw the small print that said it only has a 19ft working height, this my first error.
My second error was to have a house whose edge of the roof is consistently over 21ft from the ground. Now my next big mistake was to decide to decorate in some sort of wind storm of 22mph winds. This requires me to hold onto the ladder with both hands in sheer terror, while praying for another "appendage" with which I could hang lights.
I had plenty of lights; you know the pretty little ones that blink on and off. So I went up my vertically challenged ladder hoping to use my height added to the ladder's to reach the gutter where I had to attach the lights. My next mistake was installing one of those gutter helmet systems, so now the stupid little clips that are used on everyone's gutters are sitting in a pile on the ground.
After a 5 mile round trip to my local Lowes, I found the clips I needed, just not enough to finish the job, but I figured I was off to a good start. After moving the ladder some 40 times while it was fully extended was a challenge in the now howling 30MPH gale force wind, but I was quite proud of myself braving the elements to make my house the best on the street.
At this point I think it's only fair to mention Hal's house.....he's my next door neighbor, all round nice guy, jack of all trades and DIYer extraordinaire......in short I hate him! He's one of those guys who could build a boat out of two raincoats and use a board for a paddle and make it across the Atlantic in records time. His house is beautiful and always kept perfectly manicured....have I mentioned I hate him?
Hal decorated his house in lights this weekend, actually it was only Saturday, and to be honest I think he did it in like 2 hours. After his wonderful feat, his wife brought over treats and punch to celebrate the initial house lighting at dark, which BTW happens at like 1:30 now........grrrrrrrrrrrr.
I was smiling just wishing that half his lights didn't work when he plugged them in........but I was wrong everything looked great......which brings me back to "my project." Nobody ever told me that you should actually test the light strings before installing them. Now I was faced with a dilemma, either put the ladder back up and buy some new lights, or just use the ones I already knew worked but just make a display on a smaller scale. Can't let Hal get all the glory you know.......so I gave in to the later.........Hal, buddy you don't have a thing on me!
