'Here's what I was thinking' - By the guy who wired your house

Hello, I'm the guy who wired your house, and I'll bet you have some questions. People always do. 

"Why does the garage door open when I turn on the bathroom light?"

"How come I can't charge my phone and run a bath?"

"Should this wall be that warm and what is that hum?"

And most frequently, "Uh, what the hell were you thinking?"

First off, I'm not an electrician. Sure, I am "licensed" as an "electrician", but that's YOUR label. That's society's label. I'm a Wiring Artist. What others do in oils or clay, I do in current and conductivity. Switches are my brushes. Outlets are my canvas. And your house, that's my magnum opus.

Take your entrance hall. Three separate switches, not a single light. You enter the house and it's always dark, no matter if the switch is up or down. Sure, it's a struggle to get to the aptly named "living" room, but then, isn't all life a struggle?  Don't we all enter the world from darkness? Aren't we ALL groping our way through life?

Aren't we ALL groping our way through life?

Every time you enter your home, it's like you're being born all over again. That's also why I pulled that side table out just a little bit: so the pain as you smack your shin would add that extra level of realism, that jabbing agony like the sharp stab of your first breath, a reminder that the moment we are born, we start dying.

You're welcome.

Or that one switch by the back door that doesn't SEEM to do anything, but then sometimes you go into the spare room and wonder, "who left that light on?" YOU did. It's Schrodinger's light, neither on nor off, until by the mere act of observing the light you collapse its wave state. Every time you deal with the random illumination, you're becoming aware of the ways your actions affect the world at large. A butterfly flaps its wings, and there's a power surge in your den.

That's also why I cross-wired your bathroom fan and your dryer vent.  

Now, I don't expect you to understand the subtleties of feng shui or Ohm's Law, but trust me: every so-called "mistake" is really an artistic choice, a mirror to the world. Your breaker trips when you try and make toast so as to remind you of the racist legacy of Canada's immigration policy. You can't use your oven unless you've already turned on your television and your space heater so that you might become aware of the consequences of factory farming.

And yes, you are taking your life in your hands when you wash your hands because I ran a ground wire to the kitchen taps just so you understand how precarious clean drinking water is in Northern communities.

Sure, you could live in a house that's "functional", where turning on the ceiling fan doesn't short out your furnace and the outside lights don't flicker when your washing machine enters the spin cycle.

But I didn't spend five years earning a double-minor in electricianship and semiotics from Fanshawe College just so you can turn on your pot lights with the flick of a designer switch. If that's what you want, call Bryan Baumler. That hack will probably give you 200-amp service while he's at it.  

But if you're ready to have your preconceptions challenged, then come down to Fullerton Gallery this Thursday where the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 581 is having our showing, "Group of 700 Volts". You're going to need an open mind, and shoes with rubber soles.  

In the meantime, here's my bill.

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