Reset Password
If you've forgotten your password, you can enter your email address below. An email will then be sent with a link to set up a new password.
Cancel
Reset Link Sent
If the email is registered with our site, you will receive an email with instructions to reset your password. Password reset link sent to:
Check your email and enter the confirmation code:
Don't see the email?
  • Resend Confirmation Link
  • Start Over
Close
If you have any questions, please contact Customer Service

Christmas lights – Next year, I’ll be going out of town  

SilyconBond 55M
193 posts
12/10/2020 2:41 pm

Last Read:
12/12/2020 9:42 am

Christmas lights – Next year, I’ll be going out of town


Christmas lights – Next year, I’ll be going out of town
It is the season to be upset at decorating the outside of your house I guess. I’ve assisted, rather did the most of the work, of decorating four houses now. I’m not fond of being up on ladders or working in cold weather.
When I got back from Frisco that Friday night after Thanksgiving. I did my own house. I had my lights arranged for when I took them down last year, all on spools, and I tested the strands before I put them away for the year. Putting lights on my house, not really a chore. Putting them away is way more work, but it is easy putting them up the following year.
I keep them in four separate boxes, and I bought dedicated power cord extensions ten years ago, that I keep in their own box. I consider them my Christmas cord extensions, and they get no use during the rest of the year. I had no idea putting up lights was an all-day affair for some people. Took me about two hours, and that includes a<b> trip </font></b>to Lowes to buy some stables. I really thought I had enough of those, but that hiccup was fine. Plugged everything in, and “Bingo”…worked. Pleased, I took a picture, another year done.
I should have never taken that picture. I forgot how women are….
First, casually left my cell on a coffee table, next thing I know, the security guard is looking through my photos on my cell when I went to the restroom. Nothing on my cell bothers her until….”You have lights on your house.” She says.
“Well, yeah. I told you I was going home to do it that Friday.” I said.
“I want lights on our house, to surprise C******.” She says.
“This house is a lot bigger, did you buy the lights already?” I asked. She shook her head.
“What about measuring how many feet of lights you need?” I asked. She just looked at me.
“Power cords? A timer? Lights can get quite expensive depending on the type.” I said.
“You’ll figure it.” She said casually.
In my head, I knew I could, but this felt like a Segway into me doing all the work.
“I don’t want to put up more lights. I only live here half the time. How about I give half the for you to put them up?” I said.
“I know what you want. How about a trade….something you want, for lights on our house.” She said.
“How about I you for all the lights and you put them up?” I said.
“I know where she keeps her old lights, shouldn’t take you long at all.” She countered.
“Let think about it,” I said.
I was sitting on the couch, and she got closer….and rubbed up and down my crotch with her hand.
Thirty minutes later I was opening old boxes, in a euphoric state. That lasted until I opened the first box and pulled on a single strand of lights. They were all wadded together in a ball. Ugh, and the second box…and the third….the fourth….the fifth…the sixth…FUCK!
It took three hours to get the strands untangled. Then I plugged them in. Not LED lights, but old ones with lamps. Took another two hours to get three-quarters of them to work. No cords. No timer. I went outside to measure, steaming inside, and now hungry. I was confused after I took the measurements. I only needed one box for the trim on the outside of the house. Why the extra boxes?
No one was home now, so I left and got some lunch. Came back with some clips, and just started to hang the lights. Took about two hours. I went to Lowes to buy some cords and a timer. As it got dark, it looked great. I was pretty pleased with myself.
The across the street neighbor came over and talked to me about them. She is an older lady, in her seventies, and sweet. “They are beautiful, my Ralph put up lights on our house every Christmas.” She said.
“Well, if he needs help, I can stop by,” I said.
“He died from the Covid, three months ago. It’s ok, they just reminded me of him.” She said.
Something broke inside of me. I remembered my own grandmother, her first Christmas without my grandfather. As a , I complained to my Dad about putting lights on her house. My Dad acted like a zombie during that time. Everything he said was undertoned with sadness. I am embarrassed now, about my attitude then.
It was getting colder, but I offered to put lights on her house too. I was so glad her husband had organized like me. It took me only two hours to get everything up. The blow-up Lama in the front lawn made me feel better. He did something I had not thought of, a diagram on the inside cover of the box lid to show where the lights in the box went and the cords. Plus, the box cover to show what kind/brand of lights they were. Pretty smart.
I stood in the middle of the street, looking from one house to the other, and saw that the corner house had no lights on it in a street filled with Christmas lights. Strange, in this upscale neighborhood. I walked down to it.
I knocked on the door. A teenage boy answered. I talked to him, and he opened up his life story right there on the front porch. I’m not sure what I asked, but the talked about his parents that were at the hospital, not for Covid. His Mom has diabetes and was having her right leg amputated below the knee. His Dad was sleeping at the hospital and he just felt numb. I asked him about his Christmas lights, and he said his Dad and him did it every year, but probably were not going to do it this year.
“Let’s put up your lights, and talk,” I said.
So we did. Everything was done by Midnight. Not as organized, but not as bad as the second one I did. The seemed to feel better. I actually felt worse.
Worse? Yes. I connected to this stranger. He reminded me on how well adjusted my own were before they moved out. It appeared to me that I helped him be a little happier. Yet, I have not been able to do that for my own nineteen-year-old ? My own refused to help me with the Christmas lights this year.
I love Christmas time. The gaudier the decorations the better. No one was home when I got there. The security guard was at work. Secretary was away for the weekend visiting family. Twenty messages from the same guy as I picked up my cell off the coffee table. He could wait until morning or even later.
I am doubting my own social skill set. I am confused about how well I establish rapport with people I don’t even know, but my own …They are like aliens to me now that they graduated from high school.
Even my most recent enemy has turned a corner and has been nice to me. I wanted a nemesis, but not from my . I invested so much emotional energy into them the last twenty years that it feels like it was effort wasted now. My job is going great. Social life is great. Every woman in my life appears happy. The feeling of being a failure as a father from my two boys makes no sense to me. I hate it.
(Confirmation 303083)

SilyconBond 55M
148 posts
12/11/2020 6:27 am

    Quoting  :

Thank you Joy. I would think my boys would be more interested in girls, travel, or exercise than in drugs if they took my example. They might be slowly coming around. My middle kid texted for the first time in six months this morning. My youngest...caught him smoking pot on my back porch yesterday when he thought I wasn't coming home until later. We are discussing it today when he wakes up. I'm not sure what to do, make him move out too? Just don't know.


Become a member to create a blog