Working on a broken man
The electricians did a shoddy job when my house was being built. The kitchen is pretty huge, with the larger half, over close to the garage, being devoted to the cooking implements, while the smaller section next to the family room is home to the kitchen table. The island, which once seemed to be ever-covered with cooling racks of fresh sugar cookies, has become a fluorescent-bathed wastland of newspapers, junk mail and fake fruit. The rarely-used family table is lit with the standard fare of Southern Living's suggested décor.

Anyhow, I am getting sidetracked - this is not a description of my kitchen. The whole point of this is that one of the light switches, the one close to the family room, the one that gets used the most, is wired backward. As you walk into the dining area of the kitchen, you reach over to the left and expect that the closest of the two switches would turn on the closest light, the one over the table. It doesn't work that way, though - it turns on the big fluorescent light instead.


I have lived in this house for eight and one-half years and I still haven't gotten used to this fact. Eight and one-half years and I always flip the wrong switch and then have to turn it back off and flip the other one.


It's not that I don't know which switch does what. Near switch, far light; far switch, near light. And I don't really think it's a habit, i.e., I know what I'm doing every time I hit the wrong switch, even before I touch it. I think the problem is that it just makes too much sense for the close switch to turn on the close light.

So there you have it: Even if I absolutely know that doing something will get me nowhere, I will continue to do it as long as it makes too much sense to me.

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