December 13th my wife, Kristina, had an opportunity to be part of the choir in a Messiah sing-along in a nearby town. There was a rehearsal at 2:30 and a performance at 4:30. We planned for her to leave for the practice ~1:30pm so my morning was open for a “small” project. I had just the project. I needed to attach the old exhaust duct to the new fan I had installed in the upstairs bathroom. My plan was simple: take the duct tape, tape the loose end of the duct to the exhaust port on the fan, and climb back down. I estimated this would take 45 minutes because every project takes longer than expected.
The first hiccup came at step two, tape the loose end of the duct to the exhaust port on the fan. The old duct was 4" in diameter while the exhaust port was 6". I handled this beautifully. “No problem.” I said to myself, “I’ll just add Home Depot to my short list of errands.” I then gathered up all of the parts I had left up there, and skipped to step 3, climb back down. That is when Kristina informed me, “Whatever you did up there last knocked the lights out in the bathroom.”
!
I had purposely rearranged some of the insulation, but…no! That couldn’t have…Aw…a simple project had caused a disaster. But I would have to deal with this later – after we returned from the Messiah. Not now. But this was just the beginning.