Susan Keezer: Lamp
Perhaps I should have deleted that email from Lamps-are-You or whatever it is called. I had not paid a lot of attention to their increasing notices of GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALES, BACK IN BUSINESS SALES, and others.
Such spiders’ webs were cast out like emergency nets, and I was a goofy fly, wandering about scratching my head, humming an old tune, not paying attention and landed smack into the middle of one of their sticky nets.
I found myself reading pages of ads touting the merits of this lamp and that lamp. Table lamps. Lamps to be hardwired to the walls. Outdoor lamps to grace your porch, deck, patio or to highlight the gorgeous blue of your swimming pool.
I became immersed in this email and its hundreds of lamps. Let me say this. I would not have spent an hour and a half in a lamp store looking at lamps. However, I spent that much time trolling through this online temptation, didn’t I?
You bet. By the time that much time had been wasted, I was giddy with hunger and my eyes needed to be re-hydrated. They were as dry as if I had been lying in the Sahara staring at the sun for a couple of hours. Now THAT is some lamp, let me tell you.
I had for some time thought it would be a good thing to have a floor lamp next to my bed. I need more light for reading. I saw a brushed nickel pharmacist’s floor lamp on sale. Perfect.
A few strokes on my keyboard to enter my name, address, payment and promise to send the toenail clippings of one of my cats to some weirdo at this place, and I set about waiting for this magic lantern to appear.
I’ve gotten quite used to Amazon orders arriving before I’ve hit the “Place Order” button on its site so I was starting to pace the floor and ready to call the lamp store when my purchase took 12 days to arrive.
Daughter the Younger asked me again if I was sure I wanted it in my bedroom. I did.
A bulky brown carton arrived with seams welded so tightly Fort Knox guards would have been impressed. Rather than walk to the kitchen for a box cutter, I took some scissors to it. I opened one end to reveal this solid foam box. I could not pull it out. I had to open the other end of the box. I could not pull it from that end. I muttered something, took a deep breath, pushed at it and this foam casket slid out the other end of the box. I unpacked everything and put the pieces on my bed.
After some time, I realized I could not assemble it.
“Oh, Daughter the Younger, could you come here for a moment?”
Within two nanoseconds, the lamp was assembled next to my bed. I think she started to say, “Are you sure….” but saw my face and left my bedroom quickly.
In order for this lamp to light my path to the printed page, it had to be placed next to my bed and where I could position the shade over my books.
To set up this system, my night stand had to be shifted away from the side of the bed.
The lamp had to sit partway under the stand and the rest of the way under my bed.
I didn’t think the stand weighed 624 pounds until I tried to move it. The stand is a tight squeeze next to the bed. I could not simply pull it toward me. I had to jockey it all over until I could get the lamp placed and plugged in. Then, of course, shift it this way and that to get it back where it belonged. I think I may have damaged some critical muscles doing this.
There was a minor flaw: my bed is 36 inches high. The lamp might be 52 inches high.
This leaves no room for error. I must swing the lamp away from me, get into bed after I have propped my pillows into reading slant, then swing the lamp over, turn it on and proceed to read.
If I swing the lamp too fast and fail to get out of the way, slicing my forehead open is a real possibility. If I nod off while reading and the lamp is too close, I will have to try to explain to some smirking ER person how I managed to burn my forehead in the middle of winter.
No warnings about such dangers came with this lamp.
— Susan Keezer lives in Adrian. Send your good news to her at lenaweesmiles@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Susan Keezer: Lamp
