A loud “Bang!” made me jump at my desk. It seemed to have come from the window.

“Bang!” It came again.

I got up and looked out. Rose stood out there waving and winding up to throw another snowball at the window. She had arrived a couple of minutes early to pick me up.

“Poor man’s cell phone!” she said as I joined her out in the cold evening air. We were off to Ace or any other hardware store needed to get the parts to help me complete one of those perennial home electronics projects that an aging home produces all too regularly. In this case, an intermittently winking recessed floodlight over The King’s favorite morning reading and coffee drinking spot had me pulling out what I fondly term the “Home Electrocution Handbook,” a basic home wiring book that has steered me through a number of complex experiments with electrical devices. So far, these experiments have failed to electrocute me, something that makes Rose and I very happy. But I wish that we would have fewer opportunities to test it. Burrowing up into the ceiling in the narrow space between the downstairs sheetrock and the upstairs floor, with the light switch turned off and my headlamp on, I took just about everything apart to figure out why the fixture was not working properly. It was a stumper. I poked and prodded and unscrewed and replaced a couple of things, and then tried the first fix.

“Bang!” A great spark and a tripping of the circuit breaker was an instantaneous indication that this experiment was not headed in a good direction. I taped the light switch in the off position this time. This little trick is not given in the Home Electrocution Handbook, especially not with the Royal Duct Tape twist, but part of the challenge of electrical experiments is to make sure all controllable variables are decisively dealt with. Perhaps this is why the Handbook has not yet produced on its promise; I fiddle with stuff.

When I pulled off the junction box cover situated beside the recessed fixture in the ceiling, I found too many wires. Another stumper. With my trusty headlamp I found an extra set of wires running into a black plastic device sticking out of the side of the junction box. Geez. Time to call Dad. Happy New Year! What the hell is going on in our ceiling? Probably some heat sensor, wired in to shut off electricity to the fixture in case of fire-causing high temperatures. Sounded like a perfect sort of device to fail after 20 years, so I cut it out and rewired. This time the jury-rigged experiment showed that the bad link had been cut out, but I needed several more parts to get it all put back together again. A new fixture was out of the question, because I couldn’t find one that would fit properly in the hole in the ceiling. So I had to try to rebuild the one I’d had to damage to fix the thing. Thus the bang on the window. We shopped several times, at multiple hardware stores, before we finally reassembled The King’s fixture. Aaahhhh. Reading and coffee light. Life was good again. And the Home Electrocution Handbook taught me all I know.

But our complex experiments could not be over so soon. The Handyman’s Secret Corner had attracted another little electrical duty it couldn’t get rid of without a genuine electrical adventure. This time it was the infamous fart fan—a device to make an interior bathroom a convenience that doesn’t wear out its welcome. We had one that didn’t work anymore, a danger when someone might create the problem that these devices are meant to solve. Nature. What are you going to do? Guess it was time for another electrocution experiment. But twenty-year old fart fans are models that aren’t readily replaced in parts, so it was back to the dismantling by headlamp and inspection with the Handyman’s Secret Corner toolbelt. It could be done!

This one was comparatively easy. Really a low-risk electrocution experimentation here. All I had to do was dismantle it and unplug a fan motor and fan and remove that unit. It is unbelievable how ugly and insidious 20 years of fart fan accumulations can appear. I carefully showed it to Rose without jarring it too much before taking it outside and setting it in a safe place in the gar(b)age. Then I dismantled a similar unit that wasn’t automatically turned on with the only light in the room. This one did not have 20 years of fart dust concentrated on it. It looked just a few years old. And, coming from the Royal Throne Room, it looked like it had never been needed to perform its task. (In the spirit of Royalty, we’ll just continue to imagine that it hadn’t.) The Handyman decided that simply swapping out the two fart fan units would solve the dilemma and provide a long postponement of dealing with parts replacement and more shopping at hardware stores. But, in case someone in the royal household does come down with a case of the vapors, the equipment will be ready! And I owe it all to the Home Electrocution Handbook.

But we couldn’t put away the Handbook too soon. No, a winter cold snap has hit, with temperatures in the -40s. Vehicles don’t work very well at these temperatures. And, unfortunately, important cords get brittle—the cords that hold the plugs dangling out of the front to plug into the necessary outlets, providing the juice to keep block heaters, oil-pan heaters, and battery blankets warming the vehicle’s vital organs. Rose’s and my plugs both failed in these temperatures, breaking off and leaving my truck parked outside as one very cold lump of immobile metal. The Handbook is easy on this one. Replace dongle. We got Rose’s car into the garage to do this, so we’re still mobile. But doing this in the -30s and -40s is going to be a challenge. The hardware store had plenty of dongles; we have spares now. And when my fingers feel like hot dextrous marvels and we need the truck again I guess I’ll be out running some more experiments.