I'm not a fan

One evening a couple of months ago, I walked upstairs and into Biscuit's room. And guess where I found him?

He was standing (teetering would be more accurate) on the footboard of his bed, reaching for the chain on the ceiling fan.

The first thing most of the interior designers on the home decorating shows do is rip out ceiling fans. But Jeff and I love them and have them in almost every room of our house, including the kitchen.

The living room and all three bedrooms had fans when we moved into our house (12 years ago, can you believe it?), but they weren't quite our style (picture mid-1980s). So we started in the living room and our bedroom and picked out and installed fans we liked. The loft area (aka Jeff's movie room) didn't have a ceiling box, but we wanted a fan up there. So my brother did what he does and put an electrical box in the ceiling. After that, we put up a new fan in the nursery (which wasn't a nursery yet at that point).

Biscuit's room, which used to be the guest room, wasn't a priority because that room wasn't used that often. But even after we fixed it up for Biscuit, we just never got around to replacing the ceiling fan.

So back to Biscuit.

The fan in that room had a light kit attached, and the light and fan were operated by pull chains. During the summer, we would leave the fan running with the lights off. A switch on the wall operated the whole unit. So if you wanted one running with the other off, you had to use the chains.

Biscuit was playing in his room, and apparently, his lamp and the window weren't providing enough light. So he climbed up on the footboard and stretched onto his tiptoes to reach the chain to turn on the light.

My first instinct was to yell at him to get down from there! But he didn't know I was behind him, so I was afraid if I yelled, he might fall.

So I said quietly, "I'm behind you, and you need to get down right now."

"But Mom," Biscuit said. "I need more light."

"I understand that," I said. "But what you're doing is very, very dangerous. If you fell from there, you could get hurt really badly."

I told Jeff that I was going to the home improvement store to buy a longer chain. I was hoping a longer chain would prevent our only son from killing himself just to get some light.

Jeff still doesn't believe me, but the rack where the chains should have been was completely empty. Not one chain there.

So I took a stroll through the fan aisles. You know, just to take a look. And of course, I saw the perfect fan. The right metal finish, the right wood finish on the blades, remote control operated, LED light kit built in. I took a picture of it and texted it to Jeff.

As I said, he didn't believe me that there were no chains. He was convinced that I just wanted a new fan. And although I did, I wouldn't have lied about the chains being gone. I would've just said, "Hey, I want this new fan."

So I bought the fan and brought it home. It was too late to install it, so we put it on the to-do list for the next evening.

Jeff and I don't work well together when we're building something or installing something. We have to craft a plan of who's going to do what and stick to it. Otherwise, we snap at each other and argue about who's doing it right or wrong.

So we laid out all the pieces of the fan and made our claims about the assorted installation jobs. I won't go into all the details because despite choosing our respective jobs, there were still a couple of accusations and arguments.

We finally got everything done, and I grabbed the batteries and remote. I looked at the little diagram that tells you which way the batteries go in, and I installed them.

Jeff and I stood back and stared at the ceiling as I pushed the button to start the fan.

Nothing happened.

"You are KIDDING me!" I said. "If we have to take that stupid thing apart, I'm going to scream!"

"Let me see the remote," Jeff said.

Really? Did he just all but say that I can't even install batteries properly? Ugh!

He popped the back off the remote, flipped the batteries around, hit the button and watched as the fan started turning.

"Fine!" I said and stormed out of the room.

It might not have been the most mature thing to do, but it certainly made me feel better!

They included a little remote holster that could be mounted on the wall. Jeff put it right beside the light switch, so it's easily accessible for Biscuit. And he loves it!