This Christmas, just fix something around the house
Charles Schultz was ahead of his time when it came to feminism
Two of the dopest lines I’ve ever heard from any Christmas movie came from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
The first one
Lucy van Pelt: I know how you feel about all this Christmas business, getting depressed and all that. It happens to me every year. I never get what I really want. I always get a lot of stupid toys or a bicycle or clothes or something like that.
Charlie Brown: What is it you want?
Lucy van Pelt: Real estate.
The second one
Sally Brown (in a letter to Santa): If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself. How about tens and twenties? (Charlie Brown interrupts to complain about commercialism.) All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.
I watched my favorite Christmas movie tonight in my bedroom, and I kept looking up at my bedroom light switch. Why? I’m still amazed that I replaced it. I have zero electrical experience. But when my bathroom light stopped working out of nowhere, I put the electrical repairs off for three weeks. I just didn’t want to shell out the $200+ for an electrician to come out to fix it. Instead, I bought a bunch of cheap motion-detector lights and strategically placed them all over my bathroom. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they lit my bathroom as much as electricity. The only problem: The lights kept going out while I was in the shower or sitting on the toilet.
Eventually I had to admit that I’d either needed to pony up the $200 to get this light switch repaired or constantly wave my arms around every couple of minutes for the rest of my life. I reached out to the neighborhood handyman, Tyrone, from my old condo rental and was pleasantly surprised when he offered to fix the switch for $20, and he had a spare light switch in his truck. He came over the same day I called, and it took him less than 10 minutes to repair my light switch. While Tyrone rambled on about red wires and black wires, I half-listened to be polite. I had zero interest in retaining this information. And then my bedroom light went out a year later.