Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum…

An Englishman has been in our house! And although I can’t smell his blood like the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk,” I can tell you that he installed the loveliest electrical wires and outlet boxes I have ever seen in my life. I’m talking about Cheerio Steve, who is the nicest, fastest, cheapest darn electrician this side of the English Channel.

Just look at his beautiful work…

The wires flow through the walls and ceilings like meandering streams, proudly announcing “We will conduct electricity and we will do it well.”

The ceiling cans shine like beacons of hope – a prelude to the symphony of light that shall soon erupt from them.

And the outlet boxes! Oh dear, sweet outlet boxes.

For so long your existence seemed only to be a dream, but alas! You are real. After years of switching appliances and gadgets between only two outlets, your abundant presence quenches my thirst for electricity.

For five years, we lived in a jungle of knob-and-tube wiring (one that made most electricians cringe when they enter our home). I can now say it has all been terminated. In other words, our house is free from its net of outdated and unsafe knob-and-tube wiring. And that freedom is thanks to Cheerio Steve and my father, the two men who rewired our entire home.

Maybe I should make them some bangers and mash as a thank you. But I’d hate for them to think me daft for not serving fish and chips and a pint. I don’t want to make a gaffe or drop a clanger when it comes to my British electrician – he’d think me a duffer and surely tell me to get stuffed!

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