That Creepy Over-the-Shoulder Feeling

Not sure what is going on around here. I'd blame Hick for making me the star of my own Gaslight movie, but he was nowhere around. In fact, he was upstairs, where I could keep tabs on him by his footsteps. More accurately, by the sound of him stumping around on footless ankles. That's how he walks. Like there's no fleshy heel or flexible foot.

Anyhoo... Monday night, Hick had been over to the BARn for 45 minutes, looking for some kind of boring electrical connectors to use at Hick House. I purely regretted asking him why he went over there. I thought I might nod off from sudden-onset narcolepsy, there at the bottom of the stairs, while he went into detail. Then I asked him about the pictures from the Hick House basement he'd sent me. You can bet your bottom dollar that Val is not gonna risk a fine from violating the Truth in Blogging Law! Our entire exchange lasted about three minutes, and I returned to my lair.

I was tapping away at New Delly's keyboard when something seemed amiss. You know how you get that feeling. Like something is different. Like when you're driving your usual route, and your eye is drawn to a new yard sign, or a house with its trim painted a different color. You might not be consciously thinking about it, but your subconscious knows. I swiveled my old rolly chair part-way, and looked over my left shoulder.

Huh!

The ceiling light in the corner was on. Not a big deal, right? I had the lights on. Since I've been spending so much time alone down here, without The Pony or even Hick to hear me scream, I turn the lights on. The Truth in Blogging Law just gently tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "You'd better make that 'turn the light on,' because only one of the four ceiling lights works, remember?"

Yes. That has been standard operating procedure here in the lair for many, many months now. Maybe longer. Hick says he has the fluorescent lights somewhere. He's always meaning to fix them. I've gotten used to my foot-candles. I can have 3/4 of a dark basement lair. The next best thing, without being frightened out of my skin by the occasional (okay, routine) odd occurrence.

Anyhoo... my subconscious had picked up on the fact that my lair was TOO BRIGHT! I'm including pics, to prove it happened.

That's the offending light, which had the GALL to come on, while I was out of the room talking to Hick. It's in the corner behind me, diagonal from my desk and New Delly.

There's the one by the door of my lair. Off. As usual.

That's over in The Pony's corner. Off. Where my old giant gray metal desk sits, which used to hold young Pony's computer, when he was in his formative years.

That's the light directly over New Delly. The only light that has been consistently lit all these years.

Let the record show that I'm not as bad a picture-taker as these skewed images might portend. Nor am I trying to be artsy-fartsy and make you feel like you're going down on the Titanic. I was just trying to include other parts than the ceiling, so you could see that these are four different lights, in four different areas of the lair's ceiling.

I went back out to holler up to Hick. Kind of glancing over my shoulder, lest that light go OFF while I was out of sight. Hick didn't see anything remarkable about this occurrence.

"Oh. That happens. They come back on."

I wonder if that's what he told the people at work who wanted their lights replaced. I know that when such a light went out in my classroom, it did not come back on. I had to fill out a maintenance request, and wait about a week or two for fixing. I know that, because I had 100 students every day, a good number of which were kind enough to point out to me every day that the light was not working.

Maybe that's why Hick has been so slow to fix my lights. He KNEW they'd eventually come back on! Nah. I don't think so.
_____________________________________________________________

Welp! That didn't last long.

That light has been off again, as usual, from the time I descended to my lair around 2:00 this afternoon. (Tuesday)

I pointed out to Hick that the light is off again.

"But that's perfectly normal, according to you, so no big deal."

"It's NOT normal, Val."

"That's what you told me yesterday. That these lights go on and off all the time."

"No. Things happen to them. That's what I said. It's not normal, no."

Funny how Hick changes his tune after Val has finished the symphony.