How Many Heroes Does It Take To Screw In A Lightbulb

I hope I don’t have to find out. I wouldn’t know how to find them because I don’t know where they live.

I live on the grid. I haven’t counted up the number of lightbulbs and electrical sockets in my apartment, but I’m dependent upon them for getting through the day. I can do without my portable dishwasher and my TV because I have substitutes. Two hands, running water, and a computer with streaming services.

But unless I want my day to be regulated by sunrise and sunset, electricity is my lifeline to the outside world.

I’ve written before about imagining what the 1918 pandemic was like for my grandparents, or your great-grandparents, depending on the demographic.

No radio, no TV, no phone, no Zoom calls. Depressed yet?

None of us in 2020 could do this without the Internet (those of us who are still keeping ourselves apart from the madding crowd so we’ll still be alive when the pandemic is over).

I have an added risk. I have to get through this plague without having to climb a ladder. A small stroke 18 months ago left me with a disability, minor as strokes go. It hit my cerebellum, striking a blow to my peripheral vision and my balance. I can live with mild double-vision when I give someone the side-eye, mainly because I’m not looking at anyone these days. But my balance has taken a hit from too many months without seeing the horizon.

Where getting up on a ladder was tricky before, now it could mean curtains. Really, though, with almost everything I own at my fingertips, what’s the big deal?

Almost is the operative word. For me to have light and WiFi, I have to monitor the usage of the overhead lights in my kitchen, bathroom, and foyer/dining room, and the number of appliances running at one time so I don’t flip the circuit breakers.

Either one of those catastrophes (in pandemic times), would send me into a frazzle and up onto a ladder. First, obviously to replace the lightbulbs, and second to fix the circuit breakers.

Don’t get me started on the clusterf*ck arranged by the previous owners of the building. They hired some genius who decided to put the circuit breakers behind a bookcase. It’s not completely behind the bookcase, after all, as they promised. See photo.

To prevent the bookcase and other heavy objects from falling on me during an earthquake, which are regular occurrences in San Francisco, I have all heavy objects bolted to the wall.

If I forget which appliances I can only use individually (no microwave when the dishwasher is running, for instance) I have a heart-sinking moment when I’m plunged into darkness and realize it’s not the city cutting a hole in our power line, but my circuit breaker that’s flipped its switch.

Pre-zapping of my cerebellum, I’d have to remove all the books and climb up on a ladder, unscrew the bolts and pull the bookcase away from the wall. Fix the circuit breakers, and put the bookcase back together. With time out for swearing.

When the overhead lightbulb blew out, it could also get tricky to remove the light fixture without dropping it on the floor and falling off the ladder. You get the picture. But back then, I was able. Lucky for me, after my stroke, my building manager obliged by taking care of these issues for me. I could use my ladder as a planter.

At the start of the quarantine, I worried about having to invite a maintenance person in to my apartment to replace bulbs and fix the circuit breakers. So, I moved three table lamps, of which I have many, onto kitchen surfaces so I don’t have to use the overhead lights, except in emergencies. I use a flashlight in the bathroom when I can, and I am very mindful to only turn on one appliance at a time.

But I’ve been isolating for four months now, and it’s getting old. I’m getting lazy.

More and more, I turn on the overhead lights in the kitchen and bathroom because I’m tired of cooking in low light and washing my clothes by flashlight.

Sooner or later, though, I know the lightbulbs will burn out. Maybe I’ll forget and turn on the microwave while the dishwasher is running and kill the lights altogether.

At first, I never touched an item that came into my apartment with my bare hands. In fact, to be honest, deliveries, including mail, frightened the bejesus out of me. I’d grab it with my rubber gloves and hold it out in front and think, what do I do with it now?

These days, I pick up the packages my neighbors leave at my door with bare hands and just wash my hands afterward.

I now go downstairs to empty my trash so I can walk up four flights of stairs for extra cardio. Our governor has mandated masks in all common indoor areas, and that gives me cover to make this one exception to my quarantine.

On a recent excursion to the lobby, I ran into the woman who cleans our building each week. I hadn’t seen her months, of course. I don’t know her name or anything about her, but we have been exchanging pleasantries for several years.

Though we waved to each other, I doubt she recognized me behind my mask. Maybe, she wouldn’t even remember me. She sees lots of people in lots of buildings. These days, she’s one of my heroes, as the urgency of keeping surfaces clean is more important than ever.

On another day, I happened to see the person delivering the mail. Ditto, my gratitude, not so much for the flow of junk mail, but for the end-of-month retirement checks.

They put me in mind of my other heroes, whom I hope I don’t’ have to call. Lightbulb changers and ladder climbers. I take care not to have to invite them in because what if they have the virus?

Yeah, what if they do? Of course, if they are out sick, I can call management and have them send someone else from their maintenance service.

But I started thinking about the people who take of me while I’m complaining about having to stay inside.

Each morning I hear the scavenger and Recology services pick up our trash. The street cleaners rumble by. My UPS and FedEx packages arrive on time. The folks who work at ImperfectFoods.com make sure my weekly delivery of produce and other goods is boxed and trucked to my lobby. I haven’t even mentioned my neighbors who run errands and leave packages outside my door in case I don’t go to the lobby.

I’m not the first person to note that not all heroes wear capes. They’d definitely get in the way of the guy climbing my ladder the next time the light over my kitchen sink goes out.

I’m glad so many have acknowledged that the people who keep the world spinning on its axis during this fraught time are our heroes.

But until now, I hadn’t considered how many of them are directly responsible for my own well-being. The crews in the warehouses and the truck drivers and health care workers. Sure, I knew we’d all be back in the dark ages without them.

But until now, as I nervously count the number of clicks I’ve given to my light switch, I realize, I keep them at a distance. Even though these people are directly responsible for my own personal well-being, I’m too worried about the risk to my health right now to let someone I don’t know come in to my apartment. Would I sit in the dark if my circuit breaker went out? I hope I don’t have to find out.

As I worked on this article, I came to this point and ran into a brick wall. Where am I going with all this, I thought. I’m really copycatting this idea that the service people are risking their health and safety to take care of the rest of us. After far too many weeks of not writing regularly, I’m trying to get back on the horse, trying to write a daily article. Was I just rambling to put words on the page?

Itook a break to gather my thoughts. Made another cup of coffee and caught up with some reading to clear my head. I went to the right place. C Hardin Hansen, one of my favorite writers, just published this article on a similar topic, but he went deeper and broader, as he always does. He got to the point.

It’s not just that these heroes come into our safe spaces to replace lightbulbs and unstop drains. Odds are one or more heroes will have the virus and take it back to their zip code, and then it spreads.

So who takes care of their light bulbs and plumbing when they’re in bed feverish and puking and worrying because they can’t count on that paycheck this week?

We can call another plumber, but if we stopped to think why the regular wasn’t on duty, would we even know where he lived to send a care package, our way of saying thank you?

I get up early in the morning and often watch the guys hauling the trash cans around as I sip my first cup of coffee. They are strangers to me, but I see them with new eyes these days. I see them with gratitude. But really, what is that worth if they get sick?

Here’s Charles’s article. He makes some very important points for all of our cities.

He ends with an important suggestion. We should give it a think.

I’m an editor and writer on Medium with Top Writer status. I’m also an editor for the publication, Rogues Gallery. I’ve published 55 titles on Amazon and edit for private clients. If you’d like to hire me as your editor for fiction, non-fiction, or business writing, please contact me here. If you’d like to read more of my work on Medium, click here to sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for reading.