So two things happened today: A future king of England was born, and my fan went out.
Naturally, I’m more concerned about the fan.
My parents bought me this fan when I was in college, lo those many years ago. Decades ago, actually, and it has moved with me from Madison to Minneapolis to Albuquerque to Minneapolis. . . well, you get the point: I’ve had it for a long time.
There was no obvious brand name—this sucker’s so old, it was built before companies thought to embed their brand on every available surface—but according to the sticker inside, it was made by Lakewood Engineering & Mfg., Co. of Chicago. (And, actually, when I got up to check the manufacturer, I noticed—for the first time ever—the name of the company on the fan-speed sticker. Subtle branding, then.)
It’s been a good fan. I’ve had to replace the knob, and over the years I’ve knocked out a few of the tines, but on low speed it’s very quiet and on medium, still pretty quiet. It’s been rained on and knocked over and dropped and had shit dropped in it, but other than a yearly cleaning, I haven’t had to do much with it other than pull it out of the closet and plug it in.
A coupla’ years ago I bought another box fan, but returned it because it was tippy and thin and loud even on low. I do have one of those dual-fan window fans (also from my folks), which I’m using now, but it’s not really a replacement for the box: not as big, and not as versatile.
I have, of course, tried fixing the fan—connecting wires broke, so I went in, stripped the cord a bit, pulled out more wire, and tried wrapping it around the connector piece (I have no idea what that’s called)—but while I was able to dis- and re-assemble the fan-speed module, I wasn’t able to get it to work. I know there’s electricity flowing (yes, I shocked myself testing the reassembly), so I’ll give ‘er another go later, but it’s just possible that I’ll have to break down and buy a replacement.
Goddamn. I really did want to keep this sucker working for another decade or so.
Oh, and for the royal baby? Well, as an avowed republican, I officially have no interest in the future king of England, but as a human being, I like babies. They had an apparently healthy baby boy.
That’s a good thing.
~~~
(And yes, at some point I’ll get back to more substantive posting, but I’ve warned you: my brain melts in the muck of July. Once things cool and dry out a bit, I should be able to string more than two thoughts together.)
AbsurdBeats 