Bulb burned out? Buy a new fixture!

Last time I’d been home, back in August, the kitchen bulb got burned on the last day. Bleagh, said I, I’m not going to find out what bulb do I need, go to the store and climb on furniture for that, not today.

Having left one of my bedside tables in the kitchen, standing on a side table next to the kitchen’s door, I merrily left on my way.

A couple of weeks back, I went home (yay!), but on Saturday I was too dead to do any work more strenuous than laundry and groccery shopping. On Sunday another bulb went dead; both turned out to be the same style (R75).

Next Saturday I bought three R75 to have one extra, climbed on a table and proceeded to try and remove the old one in the living room. After a few minutes, I used Mr AGB’s Magic Wand to call Middlebro, He Who Likes To Think Himself A Handyman (and who is a lot better at electrical stuff than I am) and proceeded to confirm that yes, R75 are held in place by pressure, you slide one end in, press and slide the other one out.

I managed to change both bulbs without breaking any of them, any lamps, or my fool neck, but damnit, if reincarnation exists, the next time whomever designed those is reborn in another human it should be one with an adult height of 1’20m!

I’d have been looking for the BFH store about now…

I’ve done stuff like this, too. We had a ceiling fan with a light like this - turn the whole globe type of thing - in my son’s room, over the bed. I just climbed up on the bed to try to change the bulb. It wasn’t pretty. I was on a squishy movable surface, trying to wrestle with the stuck glass on a fixture hanging on a stalk from the ceiling (ceiling fan, remember) that could move around…

I was tempted to fix it with a 16 oz. percussive maintenance tool, but my wife stopped me. I eventually found the instructions for the light online, and was able to change bulbs. Why are things that should be simple so difficult?